


The Professional

by dashakay



Series: Increments [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-27
Updated: 2009-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:22:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 55,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashakay/pseuds/dashakay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A woman from Mulder's past returns, desperately needing his and Scully's help. <i>Co-written with Plausible Deniability</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this story includes descriptions of extreme violence against women, including mutilation and sexual assault. The violence and sexual assault are not described as they are happening but the aftermath is described.

_let it go--the  
smashed word broken  
open vow or  
the oath cracked length  
wise--let it go it  
was sworn to  
go_

_let them go--the  
truthful liars and  
the false fair friends  
and the boths and  
neithers--you must let them go they  
were born  
to go_

_let all go--the  
big small middling  
tall bigger really  
the biggest and all  
things--let all go  
dear  
so comes love_

_\-- e. e. cummings_

  
_September, 1994_

Amy buttoned up her navy suit jacket and appraised her reflection in the mirror over the bureau. Perfect, as always. She was the picture of a young, professional woman, just like he wanted her to be. This was their second time together and now she had the image down.

The knock at the door came precisely at 8:00 p.m. She smiled, liking his punctuality.

She opened the door. "Hello," she said.

He walked in without a word and laid his coat down on one of the chairs near the windows. It was a chilly night for early fall and the panes of the fourteenth floor hotel room rattled with the wind.

God, he was so unlike most of her clients. No wedding ring, no gray hair, no paunch. A good-looking man, who had an aura of sexuality and sorrow at the same time. He was a pleasant enigma for her to ponder as she did her business with him.

He turned toward her and held a small gift bag he'd pulled from his briefcase. "I got this for you," he said.

Amy smiled. This was nothing new. Sometimes her dates came with lingerie or toys for them to use during their sessions. She opened the bag. Inside was a small bottle of perfume, YSL's Paris. She lifted it out and removed the cap, sniffing the violet aroma. "I've always liked Paris," she said.

"There's something else," he said quietly.

There was a small black jewelry box inside. She fought back a crack about marriage proposals and opened it. It was a tiny gold cross on a chain, nearly like the one she'd gotten when she was confirmed.

Her client looked at the floor, his eyelashes fluttering a bit, a gesture that would seem almost effeminate on a man less masculine and handsome than he. "I was wondering," he said in almost a monotone. "I was wondering if you could wear them when we're...together..."

Laying her hand on his arm to reassure him, she nodded. "Of course," she said. "I'm here to do whatever you want and be whomever you want me to be."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

_Present Day_

"Let's try something different this time," Mulder said, grinning at Scully as they lay in bed together, naked as the day they were born. "Let's pretend I'm the teenager who mows your lawn, and you've invited me inside for some lemonade."

"The regular way is boring you already, then?" she asked, lifting one red eyebrow.

"The regular way? Boring? How could that be –I'm only seventeen, Dr. Scully. I just want some lemonade. My, that's an awfully short skirt you're wearing."

She laughed. "Mulder, you're nuts."

"I believe you owe me twenty-five dollars for the lawn work," he said. "You do have twenty-five dollars on you, don't you, Dr. Scully?"

She folded the sheet aside and looked down at her nude body. "No, actually I'm afraid I don't...not at the moment."

He grinned at her wolfishly. "Hmmm, then I guess we'll have to think of some other arrangement."

"I made lots of lemonade," she suggested.

"Twenty-five dollars worth?"

She frowned. "I see what you mean."

"Maybe there's something you could do for me, something worth twenty-five dollars," he said, glancing down meaningfully at his own naked form. "Something I would appreciate very much, and that would guarantee you an extra-good job on your lawn from now on."

"That's only worth twenty-five dollars?" she asked, sounding slightly offended.

"Well, maybe you owe me from last week, too."

She laughed. "Why are you still mowing my lawn if I didn't pay you last week?"

He leaned over her, and kissed her. "Why do you think?"

She blinked up at him, and watched as the playful expression on his face changed gradually to something more serious and ardent. "You like my lemonade?" she whispered.

He chuckled softly. "Something like that." He kissed her again, lingeringly.

He ran his hand up her side until it came to rest on her breast. He circled her nipple with his thumb. "Mmm," he said against her mouth. He felt her own hand stealing lower, moving past his waist. "Mmm," he said again, when her fingers closed around him.

He closed his eyes. This was the best part of being with Scully, he thought –having her all to himself, knowing it was okay to concentrate on nothing but her, making her happy and letting her do the same for him.

She turned her head to catch her breath and he nuzzled her ear, chuckling at the way she shivered when he kissed the spot where her jaw met her neck. He worked his way down her neck, over her shoulder to her breast. With his tongue, he teased one hardened nipple.

The phone rang.

"Damn," Mulder swore softly.

"Let the machine get it—"

"I can't. I unplugged it to recharge my laptop." With a sigh, he rolled over and reached for the phone, mumbling, "Just when things were getting interesting..."

Beside him, Scully sighed too.

"Mulder," he said into the telephone.

"Is this Fox Mulder? The Fox Mulder who works for the FBI?" asked the voice on the other end. It was a woman's voice, a Midwestern voice with a slightly nervous edge.

"Yes."

"This is Amy Callahan. You probably don't recognize that name, but you might remember me as Christy."

"I don't know any Chri–" he began, and then caught himself. His whole body tensed, and his mouth went dry.

"You remember me, don't you?" she asked, and waited for him to answer.

"Yes," he said after a pause. "Yes, I remember."

He looked across at Scully. She had sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I'll be right back," she mouthed and walked out the door.

"Agent Mulder, I need your help," said the woman on the phone. "I'm in trouble and for reasons which I'm sure must be obvious to you, I don't feel comfortable going to the police."

Amy Callahan. It was a voice he'd never thought he'd hear again.

"I can't help you," he said.

"You have to."

"Have to—why?" he asked. "Are you threatening me?"

On the other end of the line, Amy Callahan gave a strained laugh. "Please, nothing that Gothic. I just need help, Agent Mulder. I meant you have to help me because I have a serious problem, an FBI kind of problem."

"Then call the Bureau," he said. "What makes you think—"

"Agent Mulder, I'm not trying to get you into any kind of trouble. I'm not that kind of person. I'm not playing games or hinting at some dire consequences for you if you don't cooperate. But, really, I'd think you'd want to be the one to help me. Not to sound sinister, but I'd think it would be in both our best interests."

He shot a glance at the side of the bed where Scully had lain. "Because of . . .our past association?"

"I don't want to go to the police with this, and if I have to, they're going to want a list of my clients. I don't think either of us wants that."

"Lucky me," he muttered under his breath.

"Agent Mulder," Amy said, "someone wants to kill me. I know that sounds hysterical and melodramatic, but in this case it's the truth. He's made threats, and I believe them."

"I can't talk about this now," Mulder said. "Can we meet somewhere?"

"The bar at the Marriott?"

His stomach twisted, and he wished she'd picked anywhere but the Marriott. "That's fine," he said. "When?"

"Can you come on a weekday? That's best for me. Tomorrow afternoon, maybe? Two o'clock?"

He sighed. "I'll be there."

"I'm sorry to drag you into this," she said, sounding genuinely regretful.

"I'll see you tomorrow," he said, and hung up the phone.

Could it be a set-up? Something told him it wasn't. She could have threatened him with exposure, or picked some more secluded spot to meet him. Instead she'd sounded frightened and desperate.

Scully walked back into the room with a glass of water. Her hair was disheveled in the late-night way he loved and her lips were still slightly swollen from his kisses.

"Everything okay?" she asked him gently, sitting back down on the bed. "Who was that?"

"Everything's fine." He was a little surprised that he was able to make the words come out so casually. "It was someone I used to know."

"An old friend?"

"No," he said, and reached over to draw her against him. He didn't want to look her in the eye. "Just someone I used to have a business relationship with."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For the tenth time in seven minutes she checked the watch at her wrist. She was early. She always was; she was just wired that way.

The waiter drifted over. "Do you need another?" he asked, gesturing towards her empty glass.

Amy nodded. "Yes, I think so."

He smiled. "Watch out, it's still early in the day." He whisked away the glass and walked to the bar.

She smiled at the waiter's comment. She was only drinking San Pellegrino, not being much of a drinker during the daytime. There was nothing wrong with a glass of wine at the end of the day, or a margarita in the heat of the summer, but there was something seedy about drinking in the middle of the afternoon.

Idly, she brushed some dust off the black wool of her suit jacket. It was crazy to be so nervous to see him again. After all, it had been merely a business transaction between them. He showed up, she did her stuff, he paid and left. Cut and dried.

It was different this time, though. She needed him. Sheer desperation had made her dredge up his full name and call him last night. She would never contact a client like that, unless the situation was dire, indeed.

Now that she thought about it, perhaps it wasn't the best idea in the world to have Agent Mulder meet her in the bar of the hotel where they'd met so many times before.

Amy looked towards the bar entrance again and he was striding though, impressive in his beige trench coat. He spotted her at the table in the far corner of the small lobby bar and an awkward smile formed on his handsome, if asymmetrical, face. Even from where she was sitting she was able to notice he had a midwinter tan.

She rose as he approached her and extended her hand for him to shake it. It was best for them to establish the boundaries, she thought. Agent Mulder's grip was strong and confident, but the expression on his face told her something else. "Thank you for meeting me on such short notice," she said, taking her seat again.

He shrugged off his coat to reveal a well-cut gray suit that said Calvin Klein to her experienced eyes. Interesting. How did a federal employee afford a designer suit?

The bar was mostly empty at that late-afternoon hour and the waiter came over with her water. The agent ordered the same for himself.

"I have a question for you, Amy, before we get started," he said.

"What's that?"

"How did you know I was with the FBI?"

She smiled. "I saw your ID one time. I'm good at spotting things like that."

"Okay, fair enough." He sat back in his chair and appraised her with watchful gray-green eyes. "What's going on?"

"I suppose we can dispose with the pleasantries, Agent Mulder."

His mouth twitched. "It's just Mulder. It seems too formal for you to call me Agent Mulder when..." His hands made an odd gesture.

Briefly, she remembered easing navy dress pants and boxers off his hips to settle between his knees and take him in her mouth. Business, she reminded herself, and shut the memory away.

She cleared her throat. "For the last few weeks, I've been getting some disturbing phone calls on my private line, which is unlisted."

"What kind of calls?"

"The voice has been filtered through a voice synthesizer, but I'm assuming it's a man." A wave of nausea rolled through her stomach and she swallowed some water. "Filthy, disgusting calls, about what a whore I am, how I need to be punished. He says he's going to slit my throat and fuck me while I bleed to death."

Mulder nodded, a sympathetic look in his sleepy eyes. "How many calls have you gotten? Do you have Caller ID?"

"I'd say there's been a call every two or three days. And yes, I have Caller ID, but the number is blocked, of course. If it was just phone calls, I'd ignore it..."

The waiter handed Mulder his water and set down the bottle and a bowl of peanuts and pretzels. "There's something else?" Mulder asked."Yes." She reached under the table and pulled out her black leather Coach briefcase. Opening it, she brought out a large white envelope and handed it to him.

Inside were six black and white photographs, each individually sealed in a Ziploc bag.

Mulder looked up at her in surprise. "Nice touch, those bags. Was that so you don't get fingerprints on them?"

"I like to read detective novels."

He put on a pair of reading glasses that made him look like a young history professor, and examined the pictures. They had obviously been taken with a telephoto lens. Amy, leaving her apartment building. Having coffee at a table on the sidewalk outside of a cafe. Standing in the lobby of the Four Seasons, in conversation with a gray-haired man in a business suit. Driving her car. On the Stairmaster in a sports bra and a pair of bike shorts.

Mulder set the photos down. "I can see why you're frightened."

She gulped. "He's been following me; he knows my routine."

Always, she'd been the model of caution. Her clients never knew her real name, her personal phone number, her address. She never revealed the slightest scrap of her personal life when she was working. There was Christy's life and then there was Amy's.

He crunched some ice between his teeth. "Could he be one of your clients? Is there anyone who has acted particularly bizarre or has seemed obsessed?"

Amy shook her head. "I've tried to think of someone, but they're all so normal. You know, just suits, married businessmen from Chevy Chase. I've only had a few bad experiences and they were...taken care of."

"Have you recorded any of the calls?" Mulder drained his glass of fizzy water.

"Yes, I have. Like I said, I like detective novels. They're relaxing." She pulled two mini-cassettes from her briefcase and set them on the table.

"Any spurned lovers?"

"No." She felt a smile spreading on her face. "There's only been Michael for the past five years."

"And you don't think—"

She cut him off. "Not at all. He's the most wonderful man in the world. He's an artist, very open-minded and it doesn't bother him that I'm a working woman."

The agent made an unreadable noise in the back of his throat. "If I need to, could I talk to Michael?"

"Oh, sure. He's terribly upset about this, too."

Mulder nodded. "Okay, Amy, I'll see what I can do, but there's just one thing that makes me reluctant to help you."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I have a partner," he continued. "A woman. But she's more than my partner now. She's my—"

"Your lover?" she asked, interrupting as always. It was a bad habit left over from growing up in a family of five children.

"Yes. If I help you, I have to bring her in, because we always work together. But I don't know how she'll take the news that I was one of your...clients."

Amy sighed. "There's a big difference between paid sex and making love."

"Not everyone sees it like that, and I don't think she will. And there's the matter of—," he grimaced, "how you look."

What about how I look, she thought defensively, and then it all clicked into place. A year ago she and Michael had been out for Sunday breakfast when she'd seen Mulder at the restaurant with a woman. A small, slender woman with bobbed red hair and blue eyes. A woman who easily could have passed for one of Amy's own sisters.

"My looks?" she asked, deciding not to tell Mulder about seeing his partner.

His face turned a faint pink and he looked down at the table. "You look like her, Amy."

"I see," she said, clasping her hands in her lap. "That _is_ complicated. Perhaps you could tell her you met me some other way?"

"I wish I could, but I don't think so." His voice was hoarse. "I don't lie to Scully."

The last time he'd rented her, he'd cried out that name, Scully, as he'd bucked against her with his orgasm.

Amy tilted her head. "I'd say you've already done a fair amount of lying, if only by omission."

"I know and I regret that. I've wondered, from time to time, if my experiences with you might come back to haunt me."

His face was so full of regret that she felt a stab of empathy. Usually, she figured her clients got what they deserved if caught by their wives or girlfriends, but Mulder reminded her of her own difficulty living a double life.

"I don't want to ruin your life, Mulder," she said. "I can try to find help elsewhere."

"No." He shook his head. "You need my help." He gathered up the envelopes and the photos. "I'll see what I can do, Amy."

She scribbled her number on a bar napkin and handed it to him. "Give me a call if you find anything out."

"I will." He stood and put on his coat. "In the meantime, be careful. Maybe you should stop working for a while."

"I'll give it some thought. And I have a gun and I know how to use it."

"I'll call you in a day or so." He turned to leave and she noticed how his shoulders were slumped, as if in defeat.

"Mulder?" she called out, her voice sounding tremulous to her own ears.

He turned around. "Yeah?"

She smiled. "Thank you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder paid the garage attendant and pulled out into the afternoon traffic. It felt strange, driving in the middle of the workday without Scully beside him. He'd told her as he left the office that he had an appointment and was taking the rest of the afternoon off, allowing her to assume he was seeing his dentist or his doctor. Just another lie of omission, he thought unhappily.

What was he going to tell Scully? His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Amy had offered him an out, suggesting that he could say he'd met her in some other way. He had to admit, despite his protestations of honesty, that the offer was tempting. He could say she was a former neighbor, maybe, or someone he'd met while working a case for the VCS.

He wished he could say that. Driving home through the harsh afternoon sun, he wished it with all his might.

He could still remember the call that had begun it all. Scully had been missing. He'd dragged himself through the days, trying not to think about her. He'd cried, too, more times than he was willing to admit, cried brokenly in the small hours of the morning. Finally, one night as he'd been lying dry-eyed and hollow on his couch, the emptiness and the unhappiness had all seemed too much. He couldn't be alone any more. In a moment of weakness, he'd reached for the telephone book.

He knew what he was looking for. When he couldn't sleep, when he was feeling restless and edgy and unhappy, he often turned to sex as a way of coping. Masturbating relaxed him, even if it didn't make his problems go away. He'd put in one of his videos, watching with glazed eyes while he jerked off. Sometimes he'd even call a 900 number, and talk to someone real while he did it. The release always helped to make him feel relieved and sleepy. Or, at least, it used to do that. For some reason the videos and the 900 numbers just weren't doing it for him anymore.

He'd found the Tiger Lilies agency in the yellow pages, under "Escorts." Their ad, discreet and tasteful, had promised "attractive, understanding companionship." Yes, he'd thought—maybe that's what I need. Maybe that's what would make me forget all this for a little while.

So he had dialed the number, his heart beginning to pound nervously as he'd counted the rings. Hang up, he'd told himself. No, don't hang up. Oh, God...

He'd heard a click on the other end, and a refined female voice had cut short his internal struggles. "Tiger Lilies, may I help you?"

"I'd like a—a date," he'd stammered, desperation thrusting him into the void.

They'd traded information: the agency's prices, his references, their rules. Finally the woman had asked, "And just what kind of companion were you looking for?"

He'd stopped short. What exactly was he looking for? "A redhead," he'd blurted out, the words coming forth unbidden. "Petite, one with a bob haircut, if that's possible."

"I think we can accommodate you there," the woman had said with seeming approval. "In fact, I feel certain you'll be pleased."

Those words had kept him going for the seemingly endless hours until his first assignation at the Marriott: "I feel certain you'll be pleased." Every time he'd felt a flutter of panic and thought about backing out, he'd repeated them like a mantra to himself. He'd wanted so badly to be pleased about something again.

He had to admit, too, that it wasn't only panic he had felt. He'd had his second thoughts, his doubts and his compunctions, but he'd felt strangely excited, too. Sex. No strings, no complications, no insecure second-guessing. He'd get exactly what he paid for. The thought had brought an unfamiliar exhilaration.

Maybe that's why he felt so guilty now.

Scully would never understand. He didn't understand it himself. He'd realized from the very first time how empty and meaningless the sex really was, and yet he had not been able to stop himself from going back. Amy had looked so much like Scully, and for hose few moments in that hotel room he'd been able to imagine that she really _was_ Scully, that he'd been making love to the only woman he really wanted. He could still feel the softness of her hair under his fingertips, still sense the heat of her body as he slid gratefully inside her.

It was empty and meaningless, but the truth was, he'd never really felt the letdown until afterward, when he was leaving the hotel. When he was with her he could lose himself in her, drown in her, focus on what her mouth and her hands and her body were doing to him. He could look down at her face, pretty and acquiescent under him, and imagine for a moment that he was loved and desired. When he came, he could even pretend that he was coming inside Scully. That was the feeling that drove him to go back again and again, even when he swore to himself he wouldn't.

God, he was sick. He was sick to need someone that badly, to trade his honesty and his self-respect for delusive, impersonal sex. He hated himself sometimes. What was wrong with him, that he had such little self-control?

He didn't know how he was going to tell Scully—forthright, principled, trusting Scully. It was so far beneath her, _he_ was so far beneath her, that it physically hurt him to imagine the expression on her face when he broke the news. She would be shocked, he thought. Disgusted. She would know what a terrible person he was, how weak and fucked up he'd always been at heart.

But he had to tell her. He owed her that. Scully was the reason he looked forward to going in to work each day—more importantly, the reason he'd actually begun to look forward to those times when he wasn't working. She meant everything to him.

How maudlin he was becoming, he thought, and laughed shortly. He'd paid a hooker for sex and suddenly that made him Doctor Fucking Zhivago. Boo-hoo, his past had caught up with him. He'd suspected all along that someday this was going to happen. It had always been just a matter of time.

Still, he really wished he knew what he was supposed to say to her.

An SUV cut suddenly in front of him, and he had to hit the brakes. "You're not the only fucking car on the road," he said aloud to the other driver.

He was almost home, he realized, looking at the street around him. He'd been so caught up in his thoughts that he couldn't even remember covering the distance from the hotel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He heard the key in the lock as he was filing his bank statements. He'd been too nervous to sit still, and so had occupied himself by organizing the stack of mail that had been gathering dust on his desk for a couple of months now.

"Mulder?" Scully's voice called. "Mulder, it's me."

"Over here. Just a second." He swept the little pile of credit card statements into the desk drawer.

Before he could get up, though, he felt Scully's hands on his shoulders.

Behind him, she leaned down and whispered in his ear, "Clean bill of health?"

"Huh?"

"Your appointment. Everything check out okay?"

He swallowed. "I'm fine," he said stiffly. "Scully, we need to talk about something."

"I missed you this afternoon," she said. She ran her hand over his chest in a caress. After a pause, her fingers began moving down his abdomen.

He grabbed her hand to stop its progress south. "Scully—"

She came around to slip between him and the desk. "Let's skip dinner," she said, straddling his lap. Her tone was suggestive, almost kittenish. "It was so quiet in the office without you, I kept having the most distracting thoughts..."

"Scully," he said again, and set her at arm's length. He looked gravely into her eyes. "Scully, we really need to talk. I think you should sit down."

Her smile disappeared, the look of invitation on her face fading to apprehension. "What's wrong?"

"Go sit down," he said.

She rose and moved to the couch, to sit with her hands folded in her lap. He got to his feet and stood before her. She looked like a schoolgirl called into the principal's office, he thought.

He cleared his throat. "Scully, do you remember that phone call I had last night?" he began. "The one when we were in bed?" His voice was reasonably composed, he thought. He'd rehearsed this part of his confession in his head.

She nodded solemnly. "The business acquaintance."

"Yes." He bit his lip. "That appointment I had today wasn't with a doctor. I had a meeting with the person who called me. It was a woman, a woman named Amy Callahan."

She waited for him to continue.

"She asked to talk to me about threats she's been receiving. Someone has been stalking her," he said, beginning to pace. "The reason she asked for my help instead of going to the police is that we have some history together."

"You were lovers?" Her voice was calm.

He stopped and turned to her. "In a manner of speaking. There's also another reason she didn't go to the police. Amy Callahan is a prostitute."

He waited for Scully to make the inference. He could tell the exact moment when she did; the look of wariness on her face turned to a look of shock, and then outright horror.  
Her naturally pale complexion turned paper-white.

"I haven't seen her for a long time," he pressed on. "The whole thing started years ago—when you were missing, in fact. I was so unhappy, Scully. I was lonely and restless, and one night I just couldn't take it anymore. I phoned an escort service called Tiger Lilies. I asked them to set me up with someone."

Scully sat absolutely still, but he could sense her tension in the tight grip of her clasped hands.

"There's more," he said, determined not to lose his resolve. "The agency asked what kind of—o f girl I wanted. I requested someone like you."

"Like me..." she repeated in a disbelieving whisper.

"Like you. A redhead, and small. Pretty. The girl they sent was Amy Callahan."

Scully sat on the worn leather couch with her knees tightly pressed together, her back ramrod straight. Her face was so white he swore he could see the veins under the skin.

"Scully, I'm sorry," he said. "I never meant for you to find out. Not because I wanted to hide anything from you, but because I didn't think it mattered. It was over with long before we got together. I never wanted to hurt you."

She stared down at her hands.

He stood before her silently, wondering if there was something he ought to add. No, he'd said enough, he suspected. He'd given her a lot to absorb for now. He waited for the feeling he'd been hoping for, the feeling of a weight having been lifted from his shoulders. It didn't come.

If only she'd say something, he thought, maybe then the relief would hit him. He'd admitted his weakness. He'd told her he was sorry. She knew everything, or almost everything.

Suddenly she found her voice. "Was it good?"

He stared at her. "What?"

"I said, was it good? Was it worth it?"

"It was—" He stopped, thought, tried again. "I felt— "

No, he thought; I've got to get this right. It's got to be absolutely honest, and I've got to get it right.

"It was a relief," he said finally. "Like taking a painkiller when you hurt all over. I won't deny I felt better physically, at least for a little while. But it didn't make me happy. _She_ didn't make me happy. It was just a temporary measure, something to take the edge off, to make the worst part of wanting you bearable."

"But the sex was good."

"No, Scully, it wasn't good. It was just better than nothing. It was sex that I paid for. I'm not proud of it."

She took a deep breath. "But you did it more than once."

"Yes."

She frowned, blinked rapidly, looked like she might be fighting back tears. "It must have been good, if you kept doing it."

"No." He shook his head. "It wasn't. I was weak and I wanted somebody. That doesn't make it good. What makes sex good is the combination—the combination of the physical and of knowing that the woman wants it, that she wants me. And what makes it better than good, a hundred million times better than good, is if you're that woman."

"How long?" she rasped.

"How long?" he repeated, but he knew what she was asking.

"How long did this go on?" The little line between her brows was deeper than he'd ever seen it.

Mulder bowed his head. "Until you got sick."

He wanted to sit next to her on the couch and take her hand, to comfort her, but he knew that was the last thing he should do. Scully's body language shouted, "keep the hell away from me."

"Mulder—"

"Scully, I fucked up. You don't have to tell me that. And you don't have to worry that I got away with something, or that I don't know how wrong it was, because that isn't the case. I feel like shit. I feel guilty and dishonest and like I'm the biggest loser in the world, paying a woman so I could fantasize she was you and she wanted me. I'll get down on my knees and ask you to forgive me if that's what it's going to take. But I want you to understand that she didn't mean anything to me. I just needed to be with someone, and at the time she seemed like the easiest solution. It was weakness and stupidity, that's all."

"You didn't 'just need to be with someone,' Mulder. You could have 'just been with' Frohike, or Langly, or Byers. You were having sex with this woman. Sex with a prostitute."

He looked down at his shoes. "Yes," he said in a whisper.

"You could have given me a disease, Mulder," she said. "Did you ever think of that? You could have caught something yourself, and you could have given it to me."

He shook his head. "It wasn't like that. The agency she worked for had rules, and she insisted on condoms."

Scully raised a hand to stop him. "Please, I don't want to know the details."

"But I want to tell you, Scully," he said, looking at her earnestly, almost beseechingly. "I want you to know everything. If I don't get it all out, it's going to eat me up inside."

"That's your problem, Mulder. If it's so hard to live with your conscience, then maybe you shouldn't do things you know are wrong." Her chin lifted in a proud gesture.

His heart was thumping painfully. "Scully—"

"Mulder, I can't deal with this right now." Her voice was clipped, icy. "You want me to tell you that it's okay and that everything will be fine. Well, I don't think I can tell you that right now. Frankly, I don't know if I'll ever be able to tell you that."

She stood stiffly and gathered her purse from the couch.

"Scully—"

Without looking back at him, she turned and walked out of the apartment, the door shutting behind her with a decisive thunk.

He stared after the closed door with a lump in his throat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully found herself almost instinctively drawn, not to her own home, but to the office. And not her cubbyhole on the sixth floor, but the basement lair that ostensibly belonged to just Mulder.

It was their office, though, even if she didn't have a desk or a nameplate on the door. Her office was just where she received voice-mail messages and stored pathology textbooks. Even her computer had somehow migrated down to the basement after they'd been reassigned the X-files.

Home isn't safe right now, she thought as she unlocked the office door and tapped across the linoleum to sit in her customary chair, opposite where Mulder sat.

Her apartment held too many fresh and raw memories. For the past two months it had been a refuge for them, a place where they could escape from it all and love each other.  
It smelled like them now, like their shared meals and their lovemaking. His soap and shampoo were in the shower and some of his dress shirts hung in the closet. In the living room, a stack of his CDs sat on top of the stereo and his copy of _Undaunted Courage_was on the coffee table. No, it was not a time to be home. The memories the office held were less personal.

Scully leaned back in the chair and shut her eyes against the fluorescent glare, trying to block out the nagging image of the night before, when she'd lain in his bed and waited for him to finish his phone call so they could get back to the urgent business of making love.

A bitter taste filled her mouth as she now realized he'd been talking to _her_, that woman, the prostitute.

The woman he'd seen, time and time again, and pretended was her as he had fucked her.

She wasn't a naive woman. She knew that for many men, sex often didn't carry the weight of meaning it did for most women. Yes, she was aware that men could have sex without any emotional investment whatsoever. But it didn't mean she was any less shocked and repulsed by Mulder's actions. The adult videos were one thing, but to pay a woman for sex, it was beyond her realm of comprehension. He was an officer of the law, for God's sake—didn't that mean anything to him?

He'd been lonely. Yeah, so what, so had she. She'd been missing and he was lonely and fucked-up and confused and needed comfort. Scully could understand that feeling, but to go so far as to call an escort service and order a woman like she was a Chinese take-out meal, it just didn't compute with her.

It just wouldn't leave her brain, the image of Mulder fucking some woman in a hotel room, someone he didn't even know, didn't even care about, just some random woman he could lose himself in because he was too goddamn scared to actually talk to her. No, it was beautifully easy to have his devoted Agent Scully and have the hooker on the side when he wanted to play pretend. Yes, much easier than being with the real three-dimensional woman. To be in a real relationship would mean he'd have to give up his single-mindedness, have to put something before his mythical quest for the truth.

He should have just stayed with his whore and saved them all a whole lot of pain, she thought, her hands balling into fists. He could have had his partner, his quest, his whore and nobody would have been the wiser. No one would have gotten hurt.

For two months they'd been lovers and he hadn't said anything about that period in his life until it came back to haunt him. What did that say about the level of honesty and trust between them?

God, what a fool she'd been. Truly, she'd thought that for once in her life, it was safe to trust another, to bare her soul, not just to show the man in her life the side of herself she'd wanted him to see but for him to get to know the side of her that she was so skillful at hiding—the woman who could be insecure, mean, petty, and afraid. She'd shown him those things and he'd only loved her more.

But it turned out it didn't go both ways for them, now did it?

She should have known it was too perfect to last. The way their coming together had slowly unfolded as she healed from her gunshot wound, it was too easy for the two of them. Of course something had to intervene in that. Of course.

Scully pinched the bridge of her nose, unwilling to let the tears come. No, she wasn't going to cry about it. Crying meant assuming a position of weakness and vulnerability and she wasn't going to let that happen again. Look where it had gotten her.

She didn't know what she was going to do.

She could leave or she could stay.

That was the worst part, she just didn't know what to do or how to feel. She felt paralyzed, trapped in a no-man's land of conflicting emotions.

She got up and switched off the overhead light and for the rest of the night she sat in the chair, trying her best not to feel anything at all.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It shadowed her, knowing that her every move might be followed and photographed. As she did her mundane early-morning weekend chores-picking up the dry cleaning, returning library books, picking up yogurt and fruit at the supermarket—she was hyper-aware of her movements, her every action and interaction.

She didn't see anybody strange, though. No cars appeared to follow her as she went about her business. Every once in a while, Amy would pat her purse to reassure herself that her gun, a Walther PPK, was there.

Michael called her on her cell phone as she drove home from the supermarket. He couldn't be down there for the weekend, since his best friend was opening a show at a Tribeca gallery. "How are you holding up? Did you call the FBI agent?"

Amy tried to sound brave. "I'm doing okay. I met with him yesterday and he's going to look into it."

He made a relieved noise. "Amy, I'm really worried about this. Why don't you come up here this weekend? Get out of that damned city and away from whoever is trying to scare you."

She sighed softly as she stopped at a red light. "Maybe I will. I'll check the shuttle schedule when I get home. I already called Joanne and told her I wouldn't be working for a while."

"Good. It doesn't sound like a safe time for business. Was she okay with it?"

"Yeah, she was disappointed, since there's a lot of requests in for next week, but it's my choice to work or not." That was the difference between her and street girls. She was independent, free to work when it suited her. As long as Tiger Lilies got their cut, they stayed out of her business. There was no pimp in her life, forcing her to bring home the money. And she had plenty of money saved up, enough to ride this out.

"Well, I have to go, sweetie. I'm meeting Jim at the gallery to start hanging for tonight. Maybe you'll be up here tonight so you can come with me to the opening?"

She smiled, hitting the gas. "If I can get Lucy or Hillary to watch Jess, I'll hop on the shuttle and come on up to New York."

A chuckle emanated from the phone. "I can't wait. I love you, Amy."

"I love you, too." She turned the phone off and tossed it onto the passenger seat.

It was all going to work out, she thought, as she parked the car and unloaded the bags from the trunk. Mulder would do his investigating and she'd go up to New York, attend the opening, and bask in the security of being with her lover.

Outside her front door, Amy balanced the bags on her hips and fished for her keys. The door swung open after she unlocked it, and she set the bags down on the parquet floor of the foyer.

She pulled out a bag of Milk Bones and shook it. "Jess!" she called out, waiting for the excited skitters of dog paws across the floor.

There was no response. Strange, since Jess normally went nuts when she heard the magic sound of doggie treats.

Amy picked up the bags and headed for the kitchen.

The bags slid to the floor as she let out an agonized cry.

Jess, her three-year-old Golden Retriever, was lying on her side on the black and white tiles of the kitchen floor. Her copper fur was matted with blood around the neck, and the blood pooled on the floor, grotesquely staining the tile.

Her heart stopped beating as soon as she realized the dog was dead. She slid to the floor and touched Jess's fur with a shaking hand.

"Why?" she cried out. "Why do this to her?"

Amy snapped back into focus. She knew what she had to do. Standing on weak legs, she grabbed the phone and punched in Mulder's number.

End of Part 1 of 7.


	2. Chapter 2

Mulder waited outside the Lone Gunmen's door listening to someone—probably Frohike—sliding aside the many deadbolts and flipping the many locks that barred the outside world from the headquarters of _The Magic Bullet_. He was exhausted and he had to fight the urge to lean against the doorframe. He hadn't slept at all the night before.

Finally the door opened. He'd guessed right—Frohike was on door duty again.

The little man peered around him. "Where's Scully?" heasked.

Mulder's jaw clenched. "She had some work to do."

He entered the office to find Byers and Langly listening intently to the radio, and making hash marks on a sheet of paper.

Langly looked up. "Hey, Mulder, did you hear the latest? We have convincing evidence that Howard Stern is actually an agent provocateur for the right wing. He's been programmed by the CIA to say four-letter words until citizens encourage the government to crack down and use mind control assassins to abridge our freedom of speech."

"That's nice," Mulder said morosely.

Byers stood, and exchanged a curious glance with Frohike.

Mulder knew he was being humorless, but he couldn't stop himself. He felt bad, and suspected he looked even worse. He was getting too old to spend an entire night obsessing about his love life. It was one thing for a teenager to stay up all night tossing and turning, and quite another thing for a man in his late thirties to do it.

"Something wrong, Mulder?" Byers asked.

"Nothing's wrong. I just need a favor." He fished in his pocket and took out the two mini-cassettes Amy Callahan had given him at the Marriott. He set them on the tabletop in front of him. "I'd like you to see what you can do with these. There's a caller on these tapes who's making threats. He's using an electronic voice synthesizer."

"He's not threatening Scully, is he?" asked Frohike.

Mulder frowned. "No, Scully has nothing to do with this. He's threatening someone else, a woman named Amy Callahan. I'd like to see if you can adjust for the voice modification and get a sample of something approaching his natural speech."

"That's going to take time," Byers said.

"Do what you can."

Frohike had picked up one of the cassettes. He turned and popped it into the Gunmen's own answering machine, then pushed the play button.

A robotic voice buzzed forth to flood the room.

"You filthy cunt," said the recording. "I'm going to slit your fucking throat with a razor. From ear to ear I'm going to slit it, and then I'm going to fuck you while the blood spurts out all over both of us. I'll fuck you to death. You'd like that, wouldn't you, you whore—"

Mulder reached over and shut off the tape. Byers' eyebrows had climbed toward his hairline in a shocked expression.

"I wonder if he kisses his mother with that mouth," said Langly.

"Just see what you can do," Mulder told them.

Frohike took the tape out and turned it over in his hands, examining it. "Who's this Amy Callahan?" he asked.

"Just somebody I used to know."

"A ladyfriend?"

Mulder's face turned stony. "Not exactly."

Frohike looked thoughtful. "Does Scully know you're working on this?"

"Of course Scully knows," said Mulder angrily. "Why shouldn't she know? For that matter, since when is that any of your business?"

Frohike held up his hands in an apologetic gesture. "Hey, no problem, my friend. I'm just trying to get my story straight."

Mulder flushed.

Well, that was just great, he thought. Way to act like a prize dick. Ask someone for a favor and then jump all over him. He looked down unhappily at the floor.

"This Amy Callahan being targeted for any special reason?" Byers asked, to fill the uncomfortable silence which followed.

Mulder shook his head. "I don't think there's any government involvement, if that's what you mean. As far as I know this is just your garden-variety stalker. I'd still like an answer as soon as possible, though."

"We'll do our best," Byers said.

"Thanks," said Mulder. "I know you will."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully was sucked out of the whirlpool of sleep by the insistent ringing of the phone. Lifting her head off the desk, she cried out at the pain stabbing though her neck from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position. Her hand scrabbled for the phone and managed to knock over a half-full mug of tea and a container of pencils. "Fuck," she groaned as she finally got a grip on the receiver.

"Scully," she croaked.

The feminine voice that answered sounded shaky. "I'm looking for Agent Mulder. I know it's Saturday, but is he in the office this morning?"

Scully's body stiffened, and if her mouth hadn't already felt like cotton wool, she knew it would have gone dry. It was that woman, the prostitute. Despite the aches and pains, she instinctively sat up straighter and her voice took on a crisp tone. "No, Agent Mulder isn't here. Have you tried him at home?"

The other woman let out a long exhale. "I've been trying and trying to get hold of him, but there's no answer, no voice mail."

Dimly, she remembered that Mulder had unplugged his answering machine the night before last. He must have forgotten to plug it back in. "May I pass a message along to him?" she asked. She could have given Amy his cell phone number, but she just wasn't in the mood to play along.

There was another long sigh through the receiver and Scully heard a sniffle. "My dog," the woman said. "He fucking killed my dog!"

"Who killed your dog?"

"Whoever has been stalking me. Listen, I really need to get in touch with Mulder. He said he'd help me, and I really need it right now." The desperation was evident in Amy's voice and despite herself, Scully found herself snapping into investigative mode.

"Listen," she said, "I'll find Mulder and we'll meet you at your place."

As Scully wrote down the Georgetown address, she realized that Amy lived only three blocks from her. Delightful, she and the hooker were neighbors. Maybe they could go for coffee one of these days, catch some yard sales.

What was she doing, offering to go to Amy's apartment? Was she nuts, wanting to throw herself into the eye of the storm, to be faced head-on with Mulder's immaturity and stupidity?

She rose and grabbed a small vanity case she kept in the closet for emergency trips out of town. Even if she had to go to Amy's in her wrinkled suit from the night before, at least she could brush her teeth and comb out her tangled hair.

Scully would need all the armor she could muster to look her doppelganger in the eye.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy ran to answer the doorbell, brushing tears away with the back of her hand. It had been nearly two hours now since she'd found Jess, but she was still struggling to regain her composure. Fits of emotion kept overtaking her at unpredictable moments, leaving her shaking uncontrollably.

She opened the door to find a haggard Mulder standing grimly beside his partner. Though she'd met Agent Scully once before, Amy was struck anew by her own resemblance to the woman. They were the same height, the same build, the same coloring. They even had similar taste in clothing, Amy thought, numbly taking in Scully's tailored blue-gray suit.

One thing was different about them, though—while Amy felt ready to break into tears again at any moment, Agent Scully wore an expression of regal disdain. She might have been a queen, coming to call on a particularly loathsome peasant. Or perhaps it was Mulder she disapproved of; she had her arms crossed over her chest, and she had turned her back on him slightly.

Amy felt an unaccustomed twinge of discomfort. Obviously, Mulder had told Scully about their association.

Mulder was the first to break the doorway stalemate. "Amy, I'd like you to meet my partner, Dana Scully. Scully, this is Amy Callahan."

Amy put out her right hand, and Mulder's partner took it as if it was a dead fish, shaking just long enough to be civil.

"Please, come in," Amy said, gesturing toward the kitchen. "Jess is this way."

Mulder strode past her, heading without a word in the direction she had pointed.

Scully, however, hung back a little, as if afraid she might come in contact with some contaminant. She moved slowly into the living room, looking with ill-concealed surprise at the well-stocked bookshelves, the dramatic modernist furniture with its bright Lota sofa, Le Corbusier leather armchairs, and chrome Bauhaus lamps, and the funky artwork hanging framed on the walls. Amy had spent the last few years with one of the city's best interior designers collecting her furniture and art

She paused, one eyebrow raised, in front of a bookcase. "_To the Lighthouse_..._The Awakening_..._Dubliners_..._Pale Fire_," she said, reading the book titles off the spines. She looked over at Amy. "You have a nice collection of books."

Amy felt a flash of indignation. She could guess what Scully had been expecting—something along the lines of a Victorian bordello, with scarlet drapery and gold-leaf mirrors. Or perhaps, despite the respectable Georgetown address, Scully had assumed that a prostitute would naturally live in a crack house, complete with broken windows and peeling paint. "I did graduate with honors from Northwestern, you know," she said, and forced a smile. "A double major in Business and History."

Scully's face took on some unreadable expression.

"We've met, you know," Amy said. "You don't remember but I met you once about a year ago, at The Egg and I. It was in the ladies' room."

Scully looked shocked. "We've met?"

"Yes," said Amy. "I told you your partner was crazy about you. I could tell, just from the way he was looking at you."

"That was you?" Realization dawned on her pale face.

Amy nodded slowly.

Scully bit her lip.

This was surreal, Amy thought. Here they were, two women who looked so much alike that it was a little disturbing, and they had both had sex with the same man. Amy flashed on a sudden memory of Mulder, his face twisting in an ecstatic grimace as she knelt before him, expertly finishing him off with her mouth.

She heard a cough from the next room, and with a parting glance at Scully she went to join Mulder in the tiled kitchen. She found him crouched down on his haunches, examining Jess's lifeless body. He looked up when she entered, but his eyes traveled past her, to where Scully followed behind.

"No sign of forced entry, and judging from the absence of bloody tracks and fingerprints, he took his time," he said. He was obviously talking to his partner, not to her. His eyes wore a haunted expression.

Scully did not answer him, instead addressing Amy. "How was your dog with strangers, Ms. Callahan? Would she have confronted an intruder, or was she more the friendly type?"

"Definitely friendly," Amy answered, thinking with a pang of the way Jess had always bounded up, tongue lolling, to greet each new person she met. "She was a companion, not a guard dog."

Mulder stood up, and looked around. "Are you missing a knife?" he asked.

Amy checked the butcher's block that held her carving knives. Everything was as she normally kept it. She opened the dishwasher and then the kitchen drawer, counting the knives inside. "They're all here."

"That means he either washed off the knife he used and replaced it," said Scully, crossing to kneel down beside Jess, "or else—"

"Or else he came equipped with his own weapon," Mulder finished for her. "Could this wound have been made by a razor?"

Scully slipped on a pair of latex gloves and examined Jess's throat. Despite the horror of the scene, Amy couldn't help admiring the swift, assured way her fingers explored the awful wound. The tension between the two agents might have been palpable, but Scully was still very inch the professional.

"You mean one of those old-fashioned straight razors?" Scully said. "It's possible. The wound is consistent with a sharp, single-edge blade."

Mulder turned to Amy. "The voice on your answering machine specifically mentioned attacking you with a razor. Can you think of any reason why that particular weapon might be of importance to someone you know?"

"He's a psycho, obviously," said Amy, one shaking hand rubbing the bridge of her nose in a nervous gesture. "Isn't that reason enough?"

Mulder shook his head. "It's one of the tenets of profiling, Amy: 'All behavior fulfills a need, and no one acts without motivation.'"

Below him, Scully grimaced and absently stroked the fur on the top of Jess's head.

"There were no signs of forced entry," Mulder continued. "Who else has a key?"

Amy took a deep breath. "My boyfriend Michael in New York City; my parents in Evanston, Illinois; and the cleaning woman. Also, the people next door keep a copy of my key for me, just in case I accidentally lock myself out."

"Who lives next door?" asked Scully, getting to her feet.

"It's just the two of them—he's an attorney and she has an antique shop. They're both in their fifties. I trust them, as much as you can trust anyone these days."

A sudden electronic twitter made Mulder reach in his breast pocket for his cell phone. "Mulder," he said into the phone, walking off a few paces to conduct his conversation.

Amy and Scully looked past one another in awkward silence, waiting for Mulder to finish his call.

"You know," Amy said finally, growing tired of the uneasy peace, "you don't have to call me 'Ms. Callahan.' Amy is fine."

Scully smiled faintly. "No offense, but I think under the circumstances, 'Ms. Callahan' is probably better."

"Your partner calls me Amy," she said, and then could have kicked herself for speaking without thinking first.

Agent Scully looked like she'd been slapped. They went back to standing in uncomfortable silence.

Finally Mulder snapped his phone off, and rejoined them. "That was Frohike," he said, to Scully. To Amy he explained, "I had some friends of mine analyzing your answering machine tapes. They couldn't get a clear voiceprint, but they're pretty sure of one thing—the man who's been harassing you has a French accent."

"Oh my God..." said Amy. She had to steady herself with a hand lifted to the refrigerator. "I think I know who it is. It has to be that French diplomat."

"Who?" asked Mulder.

"He was a client of mine, just once, two or three years ago. He wouldn't pay me, and when I objected he got rough and hit me in the mouth. I told my agency about it and they...they handled it."

"Handled it how?" asked Scully.

Amy brushed her hair nervously behind her ears. "Look, I don't condone what they did. I heard they cut up his face, with a razor."

"Do you remember his name?" Scully asked. Unlike Mulder, whose expression registered shock, she did not seem at all surprised to learn that Amy's agency employed razor-wielding thugs. For once, Amy thought, she had not disappointed Agent Scully's low expectations.

Amy felt her knees begin to tremble. Another attack of post-traumatic nerves, she thought. "Marquand or Marchand, or something like that. I only met him once. I do know he worked at the French Embassy. If the rumor about his face is true, he shouldn't be very hard to find."

Mulder must have noticed her shaking. He put a hand on her shoulder. "Until we can speak with this man, Amy," he said, "I think it would be best if you went somewhere safer for a little while. Is there any place else you can go?"

"I was already thinking of joining Michael in New York when this happened," she said, gesturing at Jess' bloody form.

Scully looked from Amy's worried face to Mulder's haggard one. "I think New York City is a good idea," she said.

It was, Amy thought, Agent Scully's impressively judicious way of telling Mulder to get his hand the hell off her shoulder—and telling her to get the hell out of town.

Amy nodded. "I'll call Michael," she said hoarsely. "I can catch the next shuttle, as soon as the locksmith comes and I arrange for Jess's burial."

"I'm very sorry about your dog," said Scully softly.

The surprising thing, Amy thought, was that the kindness in her voice sounded genuine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was raining when they left Amy's apartment, a gray late-winter drizzle that made the neighborhood look as exhausted and depressed as Scully felt. She and Mulder stood by his car and stared at each other.

"Can I give you a lift home?" he offered.

She shook her head and opened her umbrella, listening to the rain spatter on the plastic. "I'm only three blocks away," she said, looking at her shoes. "I can walk."

He touched her elbow. "Come on, it's raining."

"I'm not in the mood," she said and turned on her heel.

"Don't be like this," Mulder called out.

Rage bubbled through her veins and she whirled around. "Don't be like what, Mulder? Don't be angry that you had sex with a hooker? Don't feel embarrassed that I had to actually meet her today and play the civil little agent? Don't remind you of the fact that she looks like me?" It was galling; it was humiliating how much the whore looked like her, like Dana Scully gone bad. Her hands balled into fists.

Mulder bowed his head and took a deep breath. "I want us to talk about this. We have to get it out and move on from there."

She shook her head. "You don't get it, Mulder. You can move on, you already have. While you've had years to deal with what happened with Amy, I just found out last night. I'm angry and I don't see that ending any time soon."

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"

She looked at him, at the guilt and confusion on his face, and wondered if it was a curse to love and hate someone at the same time.

"I don't know," Scully said and turned to walk down the street. "I'd be a lot happier if I knew the answer to that, too."

She meant to go home, but instead she turned left and found herself on the busy commercial thoroughfare of M Street. Her apartment still wasn't the best place to be; she needed a neutral environment or else she was going to lose it in a big way.

A grande latte, a double chocolate brownie, two CDs, a pair of black suede loafers and a coffee table book on the art of Kandinsky later, she was still angry but not at the point of apoplexy anymore. When in doubt, when in pain, shop, she thought with a grim smile as she trudged home with her load of shopping bags. Visa cures all that aches.

Despite her exhaustion, she took a five-mile run in the cold rain, letting physical strain replace the workings of her brain.

The only other remedy in sight was a long bath with Calming aromatherapy oil. She calmed some, but the anger still pressed at her temples. She got out of the tub, wrapped herself in her bathrobe and watched _Austin Powers_. She didn't laugh once.

Around 9:00 p.m., just as she was picking at a piece of frozen pizza, the phone rang. God, could Mulder not take a hint? She sighed and picked up the phone. "Scully," she said.

The voice was not Mulder's, but the gravelly warmth of perhaps the only other man she trusted in the world, outside of her brothers. "Hello, lovely lady," Frohike said.

Despite her sour mood, she found herself smiling. "Frohike, what can I do for you?"

"I can't reach Mulder, so I thought I'd give you the latest news. I got into the French Embassy's database and found a likely match. Mulder told me Marquand or Marchand, and I found an Olivier Marchand, age forty-seven, posted to Washington since 1994."

"It sounds like the one we're looking for," she said.

"There's more," he said. "Mulder said this guy was a pretty bad dude, so I wormed my way into some more...obscure areas of the Embassy's files and found a whole lot about a certain diplomat and a scandal in Lisbon."

She reached for the pencil and notepad near the phone. "Do tell," she said.

A few minutes later she hung up the phone and dialed Mulder. There was no answer, nor when she tried his cell phone. She imagined him on his leather couch in his boxers, shutting out the world and wallowing in his guilt to the tunes of the Doors. She liked that idea almost too much.

With another gusty sigh, she went to the bedroom to change. Like it or not, she had news for Mulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I feel better with you here," said Michael, as they sat side by side on the New York subway, heading for Tribeca.

"I know, baby," said Amy, leaning her head on his shoulder. "And I really am glad I'm not going to have to miss Jim's show. I'm just a little sad about Jess."

He put his arm around her, and squeezed her close. "Do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head, and tried not to blink, for fear of starting to cry again. "I don't think I can, right now."

He nodded. "We'll talk about something else, then." His fingers played with her hair. "Did you hear that Ron Hannigan didn't sell a single painting at his last show?"

She glanced up at him in dismay. "That's terrible."

"He's good, too." Michael sighed. "I have a show coming up at the end of next month, and now I keep worrying I'm heading for a big disappointment. Do you know how discouraging it is to paint a work that really means something, and then have it ignored by the same people that proclaimed Jeff Koons a genius because he made an inflatable Easter bunny out of stainless steel?"

Amy smiled. "Are those really the kind of people you want admiring your work?"

He chuckled. "I guess you have a point there. Sorry, I just get down sometimes, the artistic temperament, and all that. It seems like everyone wants the same banal postmodern crap these days -- legs growing out of walls, round faceless heads, flat cartoon amoebas."

"Not everyone goes for banal. You're successful by anyone's standards."

He gave her shoulders another squeeze.

Michael was such a perfectionist when it came to his art, Amy thought, looking admiringly at his profile. In fact, Michael was a perfectionist in a lot of ways—quiet, completely dedicated, and more intelligent than anyone else she knew. She could still remember the first time she'd seen him. He'd looked so clean-cut and handsome, with his dark hair and his deep blue eyes, she'd initially dismissed him as some narcissistic actor or model. It was only when she'd gotten closer and seen the tiny sapphire stud in the side of his nose that she'd realized he was more than the cookie-cutter mannequin she'd imagined.

She put her lips to his ear. "I love you," she whispered. She kissed the side of his face, and set her hand on his thigh.

He glanced down at her hand, and smiled. "You sure you want to go to Jim's show?"

She laughed. "Yes, I want to go. There's plenty of time for us to be together later."

The gallery opening turned out to be an unqualified success. She'd been to a few such affairs that ended up so dull the most interesting thing anyone discussed there was the type of cheese being served with the wine. This one was full of artists like Michael, smart creative people with lots to say. Plus she could watch Michael, his handsome face growing animated as he talked, his clothes hugging his lean frame. It actually took her mind off her stalker and what had happened to Jess.

In fact, now that she'd put more than two hundred miles between herself and Georgetown, she was feeling much better. Mulder and his partner were working on the case, and she was safe here with Michael. Being near him, knowing that she would sleep in his bed with him tonight, made her feel more relaxed than she'd felt in a long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully sat in Mulder's empty apartment. Mulder rarely kept late hours—at least, he was rarely out late—and so she was surprised when ten became eleven, and eleven became midnight, and he still hadn't come home.

She couldn't help wondering where he was. At least now that Amy was in New York, she knew he couldn't be with her. Still, just a few days ago it would never even have occurred to her that he might be with another woman. She hated the way she'd begun to suspect his every move since learning about his past.

At last she heard the scrape of a key in the lock. Or, rather, she heard the scrape of a key fumbling for the lock. On the other side of the door, Mulder seemed to be having trouble letting himself in.

The door swung open. Mulder stood silhouetted in the light from the hallway, swaying slightly on his feet.

"Scully!" he said, loudly. "What're you doing here?"

He was obviously drunk. His hair was rumpled, and even from the distance of the living room, she could tell that his eyes were bloodshot.

He stumbled in, throwing his keys on the kitchen counter as he passed. "Wanted to talk to you," he said.

She got to her feet and walked over to inspect him. He reeked of alcohol and cigarette smoke. "I wanted to talk to you, too," she said coolly. "But given the way you look, I think it can wait."

He put his hand over his heart. "I've been thinking about you all evening," he said solemnly. "Scully, I messed up so bad."

"Did you say you messed up, or you _are_ messed up?"

"Please don' be mad at me anymore," he slurred. "I'm so sorry. So, so, so sorry. I'll go to my grave sorry, honest to God I will. Don' be mad."

"Mulder, how much did you have to drink tonight?"

"A few drinks." He went over and sat down heavily on the couch, then looked up at her. "Scully, I never meant to, to lie to you," he said. His voice was earnest, even if he stumbled a little on the words. "I should've told you, I know I should've. I don' like being a liar, Scully."

She nodded reluctantly. "I know you don't, Mulder."

"I wanted to tell you. I wanted to, but I was afraid. I was afraid you'd be mad at me." He frowned. "And you are."

"Mulder, I'm not mad you told me the truth."

"You're not?" he said, looking up hopefully and sounding very much like a befuddled ten-year-old.

"I'm angry, but you know that's not why."

His shoulders slumped. "Oh, yeah."

"Come on, Mulder. I think you need to get to bed."

"If you say so, Scully." He struggled to his feet, so unsteady that he had to keep a hand on the arm of the couch to find his balance. Suddenly he froze, and looked up with a taut, panicked face.

He practically shoved her out of the way in his haste to get to the bathroom. She hurried after, arriving in plenty of time to see him on one knee in front of the toilet, his shoulders wracked with the effort of puking his guts out.

"Oh, Mulder," she said, softening toward him in spite of herself.

When the fit of vomiting passed, he leaned his forehead on the toilet tank. "Scully, go away," he said miserably. "Don't watch me throwing up."

"I'm a doctor, Mulder. I've seen worse things."

"I know, but it's not going to help you love me again."

She sighed, and softened a little more. "Mulder, drink some water and come to bed."

"You hate me, don't you?"

"No, Mulder. I don't hate you." She realized as she said the words that they were true. She didn't hate him. She loved him—that was the problem. It was hard to stay angry with him when she loved him, and right now she wanted very much to stay angry with him.

He climbed to his feet, still looking decidedly greenish. "Room's spinning."

She ran some water into a cup, and pushed it into his hands. "Drink this and get ready for bed," she said, and left to give him a little privacy. As the door shut, she heard him brushing his teeth.

She went to Mulder's bureau. She took out an old t-shirt, and changed into it.

Why was she staying here, she asked herself. The hour was late, but she had her gun and she wasn't worried about being able to make it home safely. Mulder had been throwing up, but she knew he'd be okay if she left him alone. So what was she doing, getting ready to spend the night?

She knew what it was—she wanted to force a confrontation. It didn't seem right to go home like some meek little victim, cooperating in her own marginalization. She wanted to be the first thing Mulder saw when he sobered up, so he could see how much he'd hurt her. She wanted to make him keep saying he was sorry, just so she could show him how little his apology mattered.

He came shuffling into the bedroom a few minutes later, stripped to his boxers. "I fuck everything up, don't I?" he asked. It did not seem to be a rhetorical question.

She took him by the elbow, and guided him over to the bed. "You just need to sleep it off, Mulder." She helped him get into bed, and pulled the covers up over him. She felt like his mother, tucking him in as if he were a five-year-old.

"This room's spinning, too," he said in a small voice.

"That happens when you drink too much." She turned off the light, and got into bed on the other side.

They were quiet for a few minutes. Mulder wasn't much of a drinker, she knew. It wasn't like him to get this smashed. She wondered if he really did regret the sex with Amy. That wouldn't make it any easier for her to understand, but it would make her more willing to try.

"I'm really sorry, Scully," he said beside her.

She rolled over on her side to face him, one hand tucked underneath her cheek. "I want to believe that, Mulder."

He turned his head and gazed at her. "So does this mean we're okay?" he asked. He sounded even more like a child—naive, unguarded.

She bit her bottom lip. "No, we're not okay. Not yet. But maybe we can work on it."

"Because I really love you, Scully. I'm sorry and I really, really love you."

"Go to sleep, Mulder," she said quietly. For some reason, she was afraid that she might start to cry. "We'll talk about it in the morning."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They talked a little about her stalker on the short ride from the gallery to Michael's Chelsea apartment. "I wish you'd move in with me, Amy," he said, over the clatter of the subway car.

"We've talked about that." She took his hand and laced her fingers with his. "I love you, but I have my life back in DC, and my job..."

"You have money saved up. You don't really need to keep working. I'm not trying to pressure you, but I'm worried about your safety." He gazed at her, the expression in his blue eyes troubled.

"I know, but I still have a way to go before I can afford to open my own gallery. If I'm ever to going to turn that dream into a reality, I need to be working now. I won't be able to make this kind of money forever."

"It's just that it seems so dangerous," Michael said, his brows coming together in a frown. "What do you really know about your clients? Any of them could be a nut. And now that someone is stalking you—"

She shivered. "Let's not talk about it."

Once they were alone together in his apartment, it was easy to put it all out of her mind. They ate leftover Thai food straight from the take-out cartons, and then fell eagerly into bed. Amy gave herself over to the experience, heart and soul.

It was s different making love with Michael, nothing like the detached, unemotional sex she had with her clients. She never came with a client—it wasn't what she was there for—and she loved being able to let go with the man she loved. She could kiss him, and let him touch her in ways that quickly brought her desire to the boiling point. She spent sessions with her clients hoping they would hurry up. With Michael, she never wanted it to end.

Afterward, as she lay breathless and flushed in his rumpled bed, he got up and fetched his sketchpad.

"What are you doing?" she asked, as he sat down with it in the chair near the foot of the bed.

"I'm inspired." He looked back and forth from her to the paper, making quick, assured strokes with his pencil.

She laughed. "I thought it was only the artist's model who was supposed to be nude."

He was still smiling when the phone rang. "I'll get it," she said, and then added sotto voce, "Maybe it's your mother."

He nodded absently, and kept sketching as she reached for the phone.

"The genius is at work right now, may I take a message?" she said into the receiver, grinning at Michael.

"Amy? Is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me. Who is this—Jo?" Amy visited Michael often enough in New York that her manager, Joanne, kept his number on file.

"Got it on the first try. Listen, I know you're taking a sabbatical, but Deborah just got that job she was hoping for in LA, and we're throwing her a retirement party this Thursday night. Can you make it?"

Amy frowned. "I don't know... I'm kind of trying to give DC a wide berth right now."

"Oh, yeah, I heard about Jess. I'm so, so sorry. Listen, if you think you know who did this just say the word, and I'll have it taken care of." Joanne's voice was sympathetic.

Amy played with the telephone cord, twisting and untwisting it around her finger. "Thanks. I have an idea who might have done it, but at this point it's still just a suspicion. I have someone looking into it for me, someone professional."

"So what about Deborah's party?" Joanne was well known for her tenacity. "You could stay with one of the other girls, couldn't you? That ought to be safe."

Amy considered for a moment. She'd been friends with Deborah for some time, and she hated the idea of letting her stalker, whoever he might be, control her life. "Okay, I guess I could come down, just for Thursday night. I'll give Vanessa or Lisa a call."

Michael looked up with a vaguely curious expression. She smiled at him reassuringly, and he went back to his sketching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully woke the next morning from a fitful sleep when the bathroom door closed behind Mulder. She listened to the sounds of the toilet flushing, of running water and of Mulder drinking noisily. She listened to him brush his teeth, too. With her eyes shut, she pictured another, easier, morning, when they'd been on vacation in Cozumel. A time when things were so much simpler.

Had they really been living a lie all this time? She didn't really want to know the answer to that.

He came back to bed, and lay down on his back, staring up at the ceiling.

She got up to use the bathroom herself. After a minute spent looking into the mirror thoughtfully, examining the faint circles under her eyes, she took the toothbrush she kept at Mulder's apartment and brushed her teeth. Then she went back in and joined Mulder in bed.

She knew, and yet didn't know, why she did it. Climbing back into bed with him usually meant one thing—they were going to have sex. Yet she was angry at him. He didn't deserve to be with her. If he wanted to have sex, she told herself, he should go out and pay for it again, since that seemed to be what he liked. Let him buy something insincere and purely physical, as long as he left her alone with her genuine feelings.

But she wanted something to happen. She wanted him to touch her. She realized she wanted to reject him.

Mulder rolled up on to one elbow, and gazed at her with liquid, serious eyes. Slowly, clearly unsure what her reaction would be, he leaned toward her and kissed her, his mouth opening over hers.

She did not turn her head, or push him away. Instead she lay very still. She did not kiss him back, but she did not stop him, either.

"Scully," he whispered. "Scully, let me make it up to you. Let me make it good again."

She closed her eyes tightly, and didn't answer.

She felt him kissing her face—her temples, her eyelids, her cool unresponsive lips.

He worked his way down her body slowly, with great care. He lifted the t-shirt she was wearing and spent long moments kissing and touching her breasts. She didn't react but he persisted, moving lower, pushing her bikini underwear down off her hips, kissing her abdomen and the new tattoo on her hip. He parted her legs, and settled with his head between her thighs.

Through it all, she remained absolutely rigid and silent. He could do it to her, she told herself, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of responding. If he liked sex with no feelings behind it, then sex with no feelings behind it he would get. She was going to show him what it was like not to be wanted. She knew it was vindictive and beneath her but to do anything else, it seemed to her, would be to deny that what he had done with  
Amy was wrong.

Mulder appeared to be trying his best to change her mind. He began licking her up and down, running his tongue slowly over her in long slow sweeps. It made her want to squirm and lift her hips to him. She did not squirm, though, not even though he purposely skirted her clitoris with each teasing swipe of his tongue. Up and down, up and down, around but never quite where she most wanted him; she had to clench her teeth together to keep from showing any sign of what it was doing to her.

He lifted his face away. "I love the way you taste."

She didn't give any indication that she had heard, but she remembered the night he'd first gone down on her, how he'd kissed her and said, "You're delicious, taste yourself on me and you'll know."

He went back to licking her slowly, dragging his tongue slowly up and down. When she was thoroughly wet, drippingly so she suspected, he slipped two fingers inside her, and began finally to concentrate on the one spot that most throbbed and ached for his attention. He covered her clit with his mouth and sucked gently, pulsing his tongue against it as he slid his fingers slowly in and out.

Please, she begged in her head, successfully fighting the urge to arch spectacularly off the bed. Please, oh please. It was a combined plea: that Mulder would keep doing what he was doing, and that she would have the willpower not to let him see how much it was affecting her.

"Hmmmm," Mulder hummed against her. He was licking at her in a quick, light pattern.

It took all her resolve for her to remain still. Her jaw hurt from the way she was biting down to hold onto her control. Mulder began flicking his tongue back and forth against her clit, faster and faster. Despite her stillness, she could sense the tension building in her body. Very soon now she was going to come. Yes, very soon now, just a few more seconds of his tongue teasing her, just a few more firm thrusts of his fingers...

Her orgasm hit her with surprising force. She cried out, shuddering out of control with the violence of it. All of the tension and the anger she had been carrying around slipped for an instant, leaving her as defenseless and unanchored as if the floor had suddenly dropped out from under her.

She put her hands over her face, and burst into tears.

Suddenly Mulder was alongside her, pulling her into his arms as sobs shook her whole body. "Scully, don't—" he said, sounding as confused and shaken as she felt.

She didn't want him to hold her. She wanted to shout at him and hurt him the way he had hurt her. She tried to pull away, but he did not let go. The anger and resentment she had kept mostly bottled up came bursting out and she shoved at his shoulders, her sobs tearing painfully at her, choking her, making her breath come in ragged gasps as she tried to escape.

Mulder held on. Finally she gave up on pushing him away and sagged against him, wailing, her forehead on his shoulder, her tears turning his bare skin wet.

"Scully, don't," Mulder begged again.

"I thought I knew you," she sobbed. "How could you do this to me?"

"You do know me," he said. "I'm the same person I always was."

She shook her head violently back and forth. "No. I trusted you."

"Scully, I'm sorry."

He ought to be sorry, she thought as her sobs gradually slowed. He'd had years of lying to her and getting his surreptitious, no-strings-attached sex right under her nose. He ought to be sorry. He could never be sorry enough.

She suddenly felt ashamed that he'd seen her cry, seen her weak at a time when she needed to be strong. Climbing out of bed, she headed to the bathroom where she splashed cold water on her face and tried to regain her control. After a long minute of gathering herself together, she returned to the bedroom and stared at Mulder, sprawled on the mattress with his eyes closed.

With a groan, Mulder sat up and ran his hand through his sex and pillow-tousled hair. "Scully, we have to talk about this. We can't let this get between us." She saw the desperation in his eyes and her heart sank.

A large part of her wanted to just toss it away, lock the whole situation in a dark corner of her brain and pretend she never knew that Mulder had fucked a prostitute named Amy. It would be so easy to play make-believe. But she'd been doing that all her life, hadn't she, pretending that nothing touched her, that nothing wrinkled the immaculate suits of Dana Scully.

She loved Mulder. It was time to get real.

She rejoined him in bed.

"I want to know," she paused and took a deep breath, as if more oxygen would suddenly make her better at articulating the emotions choking her. "I want to know why."

She pulled the light blue sheet around her body, as if she had anything to hide from Mulder. As if they hadn't had sex just a minute before. Still, for this conversation she didn't want to feel so exposed.

Mulder nodded. He was silent for a moment and then he finally spoke. "You'd been gone more than a month and I knew you were dead. I could feel it in my bones. And it was all my fault, I'd fucked up and gotten you taken, gotten you killed. You were just a kid then, Scully, this pretty, smart, arrogant young woman who had come to me full of idealism and innocence and you'd fallen into my world and now you were dead."

He continued in a low voice that was nearly devoid of affect. "I don't try to psychoanalyze it too much, because even though I'm a psychologist, I'm the last person I can get a read on. But I think I kept seeing Amy because for a few minutes I could close my eyes and pretend you were still alive."

With great difficulty, Scully tried to keep her voice gentle. "Then why did you still see her after I was returned? You told me you saw her until I was sick."

Nodding thoughtfully, he flashed a tight grimace. "I know. But it became a habit, a compulsion. It was so easy to be with Amy. It would have been complicated to be with you, Scully. And I'd come so close to losing you, I didn't want to fuck your life up more than I already had."

It was her turn to display a smile that had nothing to do with amusement or pleasure. "Do you really believe you've ruined my life, Mulder?"

"Sometimes. You've lost so much."

Didn't he get it? She could have left years before.

Scully's voice came out in a whisper. "I've lost some things and I've gained others, but my life hasn't been ruined, by you or anyone else."

A long shuddering sigh escaped him and he clasped her hand in his, warm and callused. "Scully, we've got to get past this somehow. We can't work effectively together if you're shutting me out and trying to punish me for my mistake and I'm constantly wallowing in my guilt. I've told you the truth, I've come clean, now we have to work on dealing with this."

Again, she was confronted with the comforting image of running and hiding, of leaving Mulder for something easier, of living a life without fear, without dealing with the difficult issues of trust and guilt. It was just too fucking tempting to get out of bed, put on her wrinkled clothes from the night before and get the hell out.

She nearly did it, too.

But she looked at him, and saw the naked need and love in his eyes and something stopped her short. "It was a long time ago," he said. "I know it doesn't sound like much, but I've changed. I'm capable of being good to you, Scully. I'm worthy of your trust."

A few tears beginning to roll down her face, she nodded.

He squeezed harder. "Are we going to be okay?"

The tiniest of smiles formed on her lips. He'd said the very same thing last night when he was drunk, and he'd sounded like a child then. Now it sounded like the question of a man.

"Mulder, forgiveness is a process. I'm just starting it."

He pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. "I'm just glad you're willing to try."

She basked in the sensation of being close to him for a moment and then pulled away. "I'm going to try," she said and got out of bed.

Alarm crossed his face. "Where are you going?"

"It's Sunday, I'm going to Mass. I think it's what I need today."

Mulder flopped back onto the pillow and made a mournful sound.

Scully made a quick trip to the bathroom to clean up and get herself into semi-respectable mode. It didn't do to receive Communion looking like she'd just tumbled out of his bed. She didn't believe God particularly cared, but she knew Father McCue would.

Back in the bedroom, she searched for her bra. "We need to meet with Olivier Marchand. I didn't say anything last night because you were in no state, but Marchand has a record."

His eyebrows raised. "You're kidding. What did he do?"

"When he was posted in Lisbon, he was accused of raping the fourteen year-old daughter of his maid. Of course, his diplomatic immunity protected him and the French government shipped him over here."

"Oh nice, he rapes a teenager and gets a promotion."

She nodded in disgusted agreement. "Frohike says he has a juvenile file in France. He was going to go for it today, after he got some access codes from a contact in Paris."

Mulder stifled a laugh. "Isn't this the part where you're supposed to say that that kind of evidence won't be admissible in a court of law?"

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." She did up the last button on her blouse and tried to brush it into an unwrinkled state. It didn't work.

She turned to him and was almost glad to see that the expression of anxiety and overwhelming guilt that had shadowed his features since he'd told her had lessened somewhat.

"Thanks, Scully," he said.

"For what?" She tilted her head at him.

"For understanding..."

"I didn't say I understood, Mulder. I may never understand, but I'm going to try, okay?"

He nodded. "I guess that's enough."

"It'll have to be." She softened that last statement with a quick squeeze of his hand.

As she walked out of his apartment, she found herself hoping, with all her might, that trying would be enough after all.

End of Part 2 of 7.


	3. Chapter 3

Amy and Michael didn't get out of bed until well after noon. There was no need to get up. He worked for himself, being an artist, and she was hundreds of miles away from her professional life. They unplugged the phone and snuggled under the quilt as the wind whipped outside the windows of the apartment.

It was funny how when she was with Michael, everything else seemed so far away. Even Jess faded to a blurry haze when she was wrapped in Michael's muscular arms, listening to him spin stories in her ear.

"Someday," he whispered, "we're going to buy a house on a Cape Cod pond. I'll have a studio there and you can have a little gallery in one of the tourist towns. Provincetown, maybe."

"Tourist towns," she giggled. "I was thinking bigger than that. I want my gallery in the city."

"Shhh, this is my story. You can have a turn when I'm done. Anyhow, you won't have to work anymore and that will all be behind us. We'll go walking in the woods, and read lots of books, and life will be wonderful."

Amy shut her eyes and envisioned such a life. It didn't exactly jibe with her dreams of the future, which involved high heels, bookstores, taking cabs everywhere and lots of great parties with artists and writers, but Michael did spin a great tale. "That sounds lovely," she murmured.

"Amy, we could do it, you know. I've got that money left to me by my grandfather. Let's go up to Cape Cod and look at some properties next week."

She sat up. "Oh Michael," Amy sighed. "It's a nice dream, but we're not ready yet. We'd be so strapped for money."

His hand wrapped around her wrist. "Is money really that important to you?"

She shook her head. "No, not really..." But deep down, she knew it was. She wanted the finer things in life. She was used to Pratesi sheets and a healthy bank balance now.

Michael caught her equivocal tone. "Is that why you're still working? Because of the money?"

"I just want to give myself a future, Michael." She leaned over and kissed him on his full lips and he purred with pleasure.

Later in the afternoon, as Michael sketched her in profile, she called Vanessa.

Vanessa's voice was still heavy with sleep when she answered.

"Did I wake you, V?" Amy asked.

"Yeah," she said, "I had a late night. Hit a club or three after work."

She smiled at the thought of her irrepressible friend. "You're a naughty girl."

"Yes, I sure am. "

"Listen, I'm up in New York with Michael; some bad stuff has gone down."

"I know. I saw Joanne last night, she told me," Vanessa said. "You be careful, honey."

"Well, I want to come down for Deborah's party on Thursday. You mind if I stay with you?"

There was a pause and all Amy could hear on the line was the blare of the television in the background. Finally, Vanessa said, "I'm not sure, sweetie. I might be doing something else that night."

Her heart sank. Vanessa had always been so loyal, but lately... She salvaged her pride. "Okay, V, I'll see if I can stay with Lisa or something."

She said goodbye and hung up. "Vanessa said no?" Michael asked, putting down his stick of charcoal.

"Yeah, but that's Vanessa. I guess I'll ask Lisa."

"You want me to go down with you to protect you?"

She walked over to Michael and squeezed his bicep. "Aww, my bodyguard."

He pulled her into his lap and they forgot about getting dressed for a little while longer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder met Scully in the long shadows cast by Oliver Marchand's fashionable townhouse. Despite the late hour Mulder was wearing dark sunglasses and a somber suit, chosen to suggest for Marchand's benefit that he was some threatening MIB. He realized too late that the clothes probably made him look more like a mourner at a funeral. He'd been hoping to give Scully an impression of confidence and reformed character, and instead he just looked depressed.

They had spent the day apart, both licking their wounds but reluctant to admit to themselves that was what they'd been doing. Finally a call from Frohike had spurred Mulder to phone Scully and ask her to meet him. Frohike had supplied Marchand's address, gleaned from overnight shipping records the Gunmen had hacked into.

"Did Frohike have anything else on Marchand's juvenile record?" Scully asked as she joined Mulder. She was her usual cool, professional self, also dressed in work clothes despite the fact that it was Sunday evening.

Mulder nodded. "It looks like Marchand's rap sheet was tampered with, probably to allow him to enter the diplomatic corps."

"So he has friends in high places."

"Or hacker friends. Either way, Langly traced some of the records back to their source. Marchand had juvenile convictions on three counts of assault and one count of attempted murder. All of his victims were young women."

Just then the door to the townhouse behind him opened, and a man emerged.

He was a thin man, dark-haired and with a sallow complexion. He descended the marble front steps with a stiff-legged gait. The most notable thing about him wasn't his coloring or his walk, however, but the network of long white scars that crisscrossed his face. They stood out against his skin, and one pulled his upper lip into a perpetual sneer.

"That's got to be him," Scully said.

Mulder watched Marchand turn at the bottom of the steps and head toward the corner. He wondered what the man had looked like before Tiger Lilies' strong-arm talent had gotten medieval on his ass. Probably, Mulder thought, still a pretty unpleasant customer. And he'd been one of Amy's clients. She'd had sex with that man. Mulder felt a stir of disquiet, knowing he and Marchand had that in common.

"Come on," Mulder said. They headed for Marchand, who was attempting to hail a cab.

"Olivier Marchand?" Scully held her badge aloft with one hand, the other poised over the gun at her hip.

Marchand wheeled around, his ravaged face showing surprise. "Yes? Do I know you?"

Mulder, too, held up his badge as he approached. "I'm Agent Mulder and this is my partner, Agent Scully. We'd like to ask you a few questions."

Marchand's sneer became even more pronounced. "FBI? There must be some mistake," he said in his thick French accent. "I'm here on a diplomatic visa. I have immunity."

"We're not here to arrest you," Scully said evenly. "We'd just like to talk to you. You have no objection to answering a few questions, do you?"

Marchand spread his hands in a Gallic gesture. "Why should I object? I have nothing to hide."

"Do you know a woman named Amy Callahan?" Mulder asked.

In an instant, Marchand's disfigured face went from impassive to furious. "Amy Callahan? The woman is a whore."

"Then you admit you know her," said Scully.

"Know her? As if I could forget that bitch! Do you see my face? She is the reason I look this way."

Mulder regarded him from behind his dark glasses. "She says she...met you once, professionally, and you struck her."

"She is a lying whore. An associate of mine provided an introduction, and she met me at a party, after which we went together to a hotel. She went willingly. We had sex. She demanded money. I told her I do not need to pay for it, and she began yelling at me like—how does one say?—a harpy. I had no intention of allowing her to abuse me that way, and I left. If anyone hit her, it was not me."

Mulder knew the man was lying about the encounter, and yet he realized there was no way to prove it. It was Amy's word against Marchand's, and, in most people's minds, the word of a diplomat would always outweigh that of a prostitute. No wonder Amy had to rely on her agency for protection against clients who not only took advantage of the privacy in which she conducted her business, but sometimes turned violent.

"When was the last time you talked to her?" Mulder asked.

"I don't know. Whenever that night was. Before this," Marchand said, gesturing angrily at his scarred face. "Two years ago, at least."

"Someone has been making harassing phone calls her. Was it you?"

"I wouldn't waste my time."

"Really? Because we have tapes of your phone calls."

Marchand gave an ugly laugh. "I see Amy Callahan is not the only liar in this case. You have nothing."

Of course, Mulder thought, Marchand would not really be worried about any recordings Amy might have made. If he was the one harassing her, he knew all about the electronic voice disguiser.

Scully cleared her throat. "Where were you Saturday morning?"

Marchand shrugged. "I don't know where I was. At home, out shopping—what does it matter?"

"Did you break into Amy Callahan's apartment?"

"What?" Marchand's face showed frank surprise, colored with a hint of revulsion. "Of course not, no. As if I would dirty myself, visiting the apartment of that whore."

"Someone entered her apartment and killed her dog," Mulder said.

"Well, it was not me."

"Then perhaps you'd let us have a look inside your townhouse." If they could search Marchand's clothing, Mulder thought, they might be able to find some evidence of Jess's blood on it.

Marchand snorted. "I think I've cooperated quite enough already. If someone is harassing that whore, she's only getting what she deserves. Now if you will excuse me, I have places to be." Marchand raised his hand to signal an approaching taxi.

"Don't think we won't be watching your movements," Mulder said, in what he intended as a threatening tone.

Marchand laughed. "Watch all you like." The yellow cab stopped. He stepped up to it, then turned back with his hand on the handle of the car door. "Amy Callahan is lower than nothing, and I have diplomatic immunity."

Marchand disappeared into the cab. As it drove off, he waved a languid hand out the window at them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Think of it this way," Scully said, picking the kalamata olives out of her orzo salad to save for the very last, since they were her favorites. "We've scared Marchand and now perhaps he'll realize he's being watched and leave Amy alone."

They were in Scully's living room, eating an impromptu picnic of deli salads and cold cuts. She and Mulder had changed out of their suits and he was sprawled on his side directly in front of the coffee table, wearing a dark blue v-necked pullover and faded jeans.

She still felt tense around him, not knowing whether or not to bring up the real issue at hand—their relationship. No, she thought, determinedly ignoring her own anger and  
confusion, it's best to keep the conversation on professional topics. If they discussed the subject again, there was no telling what she'd say or do.

Mulder shook his head and finished chewing a mouthful of bread. "If Marchand is ruled by sociopathic impulses, and judging by his record, he is, he'll only take our attention as a challenge to be met."

"We can't watch him all the time, Mulder. This is off the Bureau's clock and we do have a job to do."

He nodded. "I know, and his diplomatic immunity makes this even more difficult. Even if he were caught splattered in Amy's blood with the razor in his hands, the French government might not waive his immunity."

Scully pondered the image of Amy, horribly slashed to death with razor cuts, and found that despite her feelings about the call girl, she didn't relish the thought.

"So, what's the next step?" She popped one of the delicious black olives in her mouth.

Mulder shrugged. "Amy should lie low in New York. Other than that, this is a bad situation for her. If Marchand were an ordinary citizen, we could try to get a search warrant and hope we found something incriminating."

Scully yawned and pushed her plate away.

"Are you tired?" he asked in a subdued voice.

"Yeah." She nodded and rolled her head, producing the pops of a stiff neck. "I haven't slept much in the last few nights." She winced a little when a guilty-puppy expression crossed Mulder's face.

"You should get some sleep."

She gathered their plates and rose from the couch to scrape them and set them in the kitchen sink. Mulder followed with the paper takeout containers and empty beer bottles.

A tight smile was on his face. "I'll let you go to bed, Scully." He kissed the top of her head, and she found herself moving away from him. Mulder turned to leave.

"Mulder?" she called out.

"Yeah?" He had a hopeful expression on his face, as if he were wishing she'd ask him to stay. But she wasn't ready. Not yet. She didn't really know what she wanted to say. Words always failed her when she needed them most.

Finally, she said, "I just need some time."

He nodded. "I know, Scully."

Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked out of her apartment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There was no feeling quite so uncomfortable, Mulder thought unhappily, as sitting in Skinner's office, waiting to be expertly reamed out—except, perhaps, knowing that Scully was going to share in the experience, and knowing that it was all his fault.

The click of the door opening and closing behind Skinner as he entered actually made Mulder wince. "Agents," the A.D. acknowledged them in his terse way as he went to his desk. He sat down and leaned back with one muscular arm on the desktop.

"Sir," said Scully with a nod. Mulder merely waited for the axe to fall.

Skinner put a finger to his lips, deliberating for a moment about what he was going to say. "Would you mind telling me," he said finally, with tight control, "what you were doing last night, harassing a foreign diplomat outside his home?"

Mulder drew a deep breath, preparing to answer, but Scully leapt into the breach. "We were conducting an unofficial investigation into a series of death threats."

"Death threats?"

"Yes, sir."

"And does this have anything to do with the X-Files division?"

"No, sir," said Scully. "As I said, it was unofficial."

"But you unofficially flashed your badges at this Mr. Marchand?"

Mulder cleared his throat. "That was only to confirm our stated identities. We never told him we were on Bureau business."

Skinner sighed. "Just what kind of business were you on, then? It's not an X-file; it's not an official FBI matter. It seems to me that death threats are a matter for the police."

"Yes, sir," said Scully. "But these threats were made to a . . . an associate of Agent Mulder's, and this associate personally requested our help."

Skinner had obviously caught the hesitation, Mulder saw with a sinking heart. "An 'associate'? I repeat, isn't this a matter for the police?"

"Sir –" began Mulder. "Amy Callahan didn't go to the police because—"

"Because she hoped Agent Mulder's profiling skills might prevent an unfortunate international incident," Scully finished in a firm voice.

Mulder looked at Scully in surprise.

Skinner's brows came down in a scowl—not an angry scowl, necessarily, but a scowl nonetheless. "Who is this Amy Callahan?"

Scully opened her mouth to answer.

Skinner raised a silencing hand. "I'll hear from Agent Mulder this time, if you don't mind."

Mulder sat up straighter, and schooled his face not to look too guilty. "She's a woman I met some time ago, while Agent Scully was missing."

A tense silence stretched out as Skinner digested this. "And you can give me your word that your actions in this matter are justified? Because I would hate to have to explain to a Board of Review that you were menacing a man with diplomatic immunity merely because you were asked to do so by a woman with whom you were once romantically involved."

"I can give you my word, sir," said Mulder, looking Skinner in the eye. "Amy Callahan and I have never been romantically involved."

Skinner nodded slowly. "Very well then, agents. I'll look the other way this time. In the future, however, you will remember that badges are not to be used for 'unofficial' purposes."

"Yes, sir," the two agents said together. They rose, and moved toward the door.

"Oh, and Mulder?" said Skinner from behind the desk.

"Yes?" said Mulder, turning back.

"Be more careful in the future when choosing your 'associates.'"

Mulder, like Scully, was silent for the walk from Skinner's office to the elevator, and for the ride down to the basement. As they were leaving the elevator, however, he said softly, "Thanks for covering for me, Scully."

She did not answer at first, walking quietly beside him down the hallway to the door of the basement office. She stopped with her hand on the doorknob. "That's what partnership is all about, Mulder," she said, in a low, serious voice. "You rely on me, and I rely on you."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder worked on his departmental budget proposal, darting looks at Scully every few minutes. It was awfully quiet in the office. He wasn't even sure whether it was a normal sort of quiet, or the unnatural quiet of anger. In the past, he had never really paid that much attention to the silences that sometimes stretched between them. Now they were all he could think about.

It was making him uncomfortable, the quiet. He got up and went to the file cabinet. With an ostentatious sigh, he opened one of the file drawers. He wasn't looking for anything in particular; he was just hoping Scully would ask him what he was doing.

She didn't ask. Instead she gave him a cool glance, and went back to the autopsy notes she was writing.

Damn it, he thought. If she'd just talk to him, he could tell her again how sorry he was. They'd been going through these disturbing ups and downs for several days now. One minute things would seem more or less normal, and she'd be speaking to him again. The next minute she'd be full of resentment, either maintaining a frosty silence or skewering him with barbed remarks.

He closed the file drawer and went back to his chair. "Do you want to come over tonight?" he asked softly, looking down at his desk.

"Why would I want to come over?" she asked.

Ah, so they were back to the barbs. He drew a deep breath, and reached out to toy with a pencil lying on his desk. "Well, I thought maybe we could try to get things back on a normal footing, you know, like watch a movie or something."

"What is a normal footing between us, Mulder? Please tell me, because a week ago when I thought things were on a normal footing, I found out you'd been seeing prostitutes."

He clenched the pencil in his hand. "Not prostitutes—one prostitute. And it was before we were together."

"Oh, I stand corrected. Just one prostitute. That's different." Her voice was clipped and icy.

God, he thought unhappily. She was never going to let this go. It wasn't like he was some cheating husband, unrepentantly sneaking out on his unsuspecting wife. He hadn't even been involved with her when he'd seen Amy.

"Scully, I said I was sorry."

"And I said I needed time, Mulder. You think just because you say you're sorry, everything gets better overnight? You think when you do something that hurts me, 'sorry' makes it all go away? It doesn't work like that." She sighed, as if talking about it exhausted her.

He nodded anxiously. "But in Skinner's office yesterday you seemed—"

"That was work. Supporting you to our boss and coming over to your apartment so you can tell yourself everything is fine again are two different matters."

He sighed. "You're never going to forgive me, are you?"

"Look, Mulder," she said after a pregnant silence. "I don't hate you."

He grimaced. They were beginning to sound like a broken record—he kept saying he was sorry, she kept saying she didn't hate him. A wide gulf stretched out between them.

She bit her lip. "It's just that you did something that's very hard for me to understand."

"Scully, I know I made a mistake."

"No, Mulder. Forgetting to buy bread at the store is a mistake. Locking your keys in your car is a mistake. Arranging to meet a prostitute and then going back to her again and again and again is more than just a mistake."

"Fine." He opened his desk drawer, took out a sheet of paper, and slammed the drawer shut as hard as he could.

Scully jumped involuntarily at the sudden bang. "Oh, that was very mature."

He wanted to jump up and shake her. Or grab his gun and shoot himself—one or the other. This was driving him insane. One minute he was drowning in guilt, praying he could win his way back into her good graces, and the next he was wishing he could go home, crawl back into bed, and pull the covers over his head.

"Maybe we'd better not talk about this here in the office," he said finally, bitter pessimism tingeing his words. "You don't really want to talk yet, you just want to fight."

She didn't answer—proof, he suspected, that for once she actually agreed with him.

The worst part was, he couldn't really blame her. He would never forget the way she'd cried on his shoulder Sunday morning, sobbing about how she didn't know him and she couldn't trust him.

He wished he had it all to do over again. He would do so many things differently.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On Wednesday Scully did what she often did when she needed guidance and strength; she went to church.

There was something appealing to her about St. John's church when it was empty of parishioners. Tonight it was lit only with a few of the overhead fixtures and felt cool without the body heat of families crowded in for Sunday mass. The large worship space was quiet, except for the rumble of the furnace and the occasional strain of singing from a choir practice in the basement.

_"Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee . . ."_

So comforting to sit in the pew, bow her head and repeat the prayers that were as familiar to her as her own name, her onyx and silver rosary beads clutched between her fingers.

_"Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name . . ."_

Even though she rarely prayed it anymore, she would never forget the order of the Holy Rosary.

_"Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit . . ."_

After she'd said the entire rosary, Scully's prayers turned more personal and free form:

_Lord, give me the strength to get through this time, and the wisdom to make the right choices. I love him so. I love him in a way that is elemental. It is almost as if I've never had a choice in the matter—I just love him and I know now that I always have, since the very beginning._

We've been so happy until this. I never thought my life could contain such joy in learning to love another and learning to be loved.

But now I wonder if we were living a lie.

I have to ask you a question, Lord. Why does it always have to be so difficult? I know that you choose some to walk a difficult and dangerous path and I accept that, but is it so wrong for me to want a small piece of contentment and security? Must I always be tested so?

Please help me to forgive.

She blinked away tears and bit her lip, coming out of the depth of prayer to the reality of the vacant and dusty church. The light touch of a hand on her shoulder made her start and she turned her head to see Father McCue.

The priest was out of clerical garb and it was strange for her to see him casually dressed in a pair of khakis and a Loyola University sweatshirt. "Dana," he said with a smile. "Please forgive me for interrupting you in a private moment."

"It's okay," she said. "I was just leaving."

"You look as if you could use some company. I was just about to have a cup of coffee. Would you like to join me?"

Scully shook her head. "I should go," she said, gathering up her coat and purse.

The elderly priest tilted his head. "Sometimes it helps to talk to someone."

She considered his words. Truth be told, she had few friends with whom she felt comfortable sharing her dilemma. She might have told Ellen, but she and her husband were on vacation in England. And her mother, who already harbored enough reservations about Mulder, was out of the question.

Scully rose from the pew. "A cup of coffee sounds wonderful."

They went to the rectory kitchen, a pleasant room with pale yellow walls and a large wood table. Father McCue fussed around making coffee and putting chocolate-chip cookies on a plate, all the while giving her little tidbits of parish news.

The coffee made, the priest sat down with her and handed her a steaming mug and a cookie. "It was nice to see you at last Sunday's Mass, Dana."

"I'm sorry I don't get out here very often," she said, enjoying the warmth of the mug between her hands. "I'm often out of town on a case on the weekends, and sometimes I attend Mass at the church around the corner from me."

"I wasn't trying to give you a dose of Catholic guilt," Father McCue chuckled.

Scully smiled in chagrin at her defensiveness.

"You seem to be troubled, Dana," he said. "I'd like to think that I've known you long enough to be able to tell."

She nodded, staring down at her hands on the table. "I am troubled," she whispered. "I'm angry and sad and confused all at once and I don't know what to do."

"Why don't you start by telling me about it?"

Where to begin, she thought. How do I explain this to a priest?

She stalled by taking a long swallow of the strong coffee. "I'm struggling with forgiveness," she said.

"Forgiving yourself or another?" the priest said.

"Both," she said. "But mostly another person. Someone I love very much did something in the past that I find to be morally wrong and I'm having a difficult time forgiving him. And I'm so angry with him that I've been behaving horribly, which has been making me feel guilty."

"Forgiveness is never easy," Father McCue said.

That was the understatement of the year, she thought, stifling a bitter laugh. "I want to forgive him, though," Scully said.

"What will happen if you aren't able to forgive?"

She shut her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine her life without Mulder. The images just wouldn't come. She shook her head. "I don't know. I guess everything ends."

"Have you stopped to consider that you are human and it may take some time? That the anger is natural and a step to be gotten through on the road to understanding and forgiveness?"

"I just want this to be over; I want things to go back to the way they were before." She knew it was a childish wish, but Scully wished it all the same.

Father McCue's blue eyes were full of compassion. "That's not possible, Dana. I think the fact that you're upset about your difficulty in letting go of the negative emotions speaks of your willingness to try to forgive."

She nodded.

"Let me ask you this," he said. "Do you truly love this man?"

"Yes, I do."

"Is he remorseful about his past actions?"

"He is," she said in a half-sigh.

"Has he asked for your forgiveness?"

"He has." In fact, he'd begged her again and again to forgive him. Scully could still hear the anguish in Mulder's voice.

"Dana, do you think that what he did in the past is something he would do again?"

She shook her head.

The priest's voice was gentle, far different than the voice he used to give his stirring Sunday homilies. "Dana, I can't tell you what to do. All I can do is help you sort out your feelings and your priorities."

"What if I'm never able to forgive?" she said, feeling her lower lip begin to quiver like a child's.

"I know you, Dana, and I know you have a generous heart. What you have to decide is whether or not you want to move on from this moment and work with this man to salvage what you have together that's good."

"I do," she said, nodding. "I want the rage and the recrimination to stop. I want to be able to stop punishing him for what he's done."

Oh, I want laughter, and breakfasts, and bad movies, and sharing our fears and walking together on the Cozumel beach again, she thought. I want to understand why he felt he had to be with the prostitute, and then I want be able to kiss him and not think of the two of them together.

"Never would I advise anyone to stay in a relationship if it causes unbearable pain and suffering." He gave her a wry little grin. "Don't tell the Pope I said that. When I do marriage counseling, I always strive to have the end result be the couple together in a happy, healthy relationship, but there are undeniable reasons for two people to part." He paused for a sip of coffee. "I haven't asked you what he's done, because I want to respect your privacy, but you need to ask yourself, is it so bad that I would advise you to leave him?"

She shook her head. "No."

He patted her hand. "Dana, you are a strong woman and I have faith that you can find the strength to forgive him. Just remember that true forgiveness is the greatest gift one person can give another."

"I'm going to try," she said, and felt a sudden rush of optimism that she could do it. "I love him enough to try with everything I have."

"We're all imperfect beings," Father McCue added. "Don't ever forget that. He isn't perfect and he made a mistake. You aren't a saint and you're feeling angry and having trouble forgiving. But you are both God's creatures and no matter what happens, He will love you."

"That's comforting to hear," she said, smiling for the first time in days.

The priest leaned closer. "Would you like me to pray with you for guidance?"

She remembered lying in her hospital bed, wasted with her illness, praying the rosary with Father McCue. She'd come so precariously close to losing her faith then, and he'd helped pull her back to the shore of belief. In a way, she'd witnessed several miracles during those dark days—the resurrection of her health, her faith and Mulder.

Who was to say there couldn't be another, smaller miracle?

"Yes, I'd like to pray," she said.

They bowed their heads and began.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

With an odd new feeling of lightness, Scully left the rectory.

She paused to light a candle at the side of the nave. Two months ago, on a freezing cold morning, still in pain from her gunshot wound, she'd lit a candle for Mulder and herself. That same morning they'd kissed for the first time in her kitchen.

As she gazed at the strong flame burning in the little glass holder, she remembered the lovely sweetness of that first kiss and the awareness that had shot into her as his lips touched hers and her mouth opened to him. I love him, she'd thought, finally sure of her feelings. I love him.

And I still do, she mused, toying with the taper in her fingers. Nothing has changed.

Scully took a deep breath and looked at the candle one last time.

For here on in, I'm going to try to let go, she told herself. Let go of the anger, let go of the sorrow, release it and try to love the things about Mulder that are good and strong.

I love him, she silently said to the candle.

She walked out into the chilly, starry night and took a deep breath of the fresh air.

An hour later she was home, after a quick stop at Barnes and Noble to treat herself with the new Margaret Atwood novel and several thick and glossy fashion magazines. She planned to fill up the tub and read until sleep took her over.

Mulder was sitting on her front steps when she pulled up at her building. He was bundled in his wool winter coat and looked like a lost waif abandoned at her stoop.

"Hi," he said, lifting mournful eyes to her.

"Hi yourself," she said, taking care to smile for his benefit.

He stood up. "I wanted to see you, but maybe it wasn't such a smart idea." Mulder ducked his head slightly, as if avoiding a blow. "I'd better go home."

Scully reached out her arm to him and grasped him at the elbow. "No, don't go home. Come inside."

A shy smile spread across his face.

Once inside, Mulder sat stiffly on her couch, as if he'd never been over before, as if he hadn't spent countless evenings with her on that couch in the past few months. She sat next to him.

"Mulder," she said, her voice wavering, "I need to apologize to you."

He pointed to himself. "To me? You're not the one who needs to make apologies."

"No, I am, Mulder. I've been trying to punish you the past few days because I've been so angry. I told you last Sunday that I was willing to try to work it out, and then I turned my back on you and shut you out. It wasn't fair of me."

"You were just doing the best you could, Scully." He sighed.

Scully leaned into him a little and he put his arm around her. She was surprised at how good it did feel to be touched by him again. "This has been hard for the both of us, Mulder, but I'm determined to truly make the effort."

"I just feel bad that it's you that has to make the effort when I was the one who fucked up."

She nodded and touched the rough grain of his evening stubble. "It's not fair, but nothing ever is."

He suddenly stood and she wondered what she'd said or done to make him react like that. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"I brought you something," he said, and reached into his coat pocket, drawing out a flat object wrapped in dark green paper and tied with silver cord.

She felt her eyebrow rise. "A present?"

He sat back down and handed her the surprisingly heavy object. "I'm not naive enough to think that I give you a present and _boom_, everything is all right again. I just saw this and thought of you."

Her lips curled in a smile and she began to carefully untie the cord and remove the paper.

The breath left her lungs as she saw a photograph in an antique silver frame.

It was Mulder and her on the beach in Cozumel. She was wearing one of the bikinis he'd bought for her, the navy blue one, and he was in black trunks. They were sharing a single chaise lounge, their legs entwined, the both of them holding margarita glasses and smiling the carefree, drunken grins of mid-vacation. They looked like they'd just had sex, they looked like they smelled of salt and sand and coconut oil. God, they looked happy.

"I took this one out of my pictures when they came back from the store," Mulder said, tracing their images with his index finger. "I took it to be enlarged and then I went searching for a frame. I wanted to surprise you."

"You did," she said, sniffing away sudden tears. "It's beautiful."

He leaned closer to her and she could smell his warm, masculine scent. "It's us," he whispered.

"It is," she said, nodding and she reached for his hand, their fingers lacing together.

He turned to her. "I'm so afraid of losing you over this, Scully. Whatever I can do to make it right again, I'll do it. I'll do anything."

I know you will, she thought, and again fought to keep the tears in check. She leaned over and softly kissed him on the cheek. "I'm feeling a different emotion every hour," she said in a quiet voice. "All I ask is that you allow me to have those feelings."

He kissed her lightly on the lips and stood. "Well, I should shove off. I just wanted to give you the picture."

Scully rose and touched his shoulder, taking a steadying breath. "Mulder, stay with me tonight."

He smiled a genuine smile, unguarded and surprised. "Are you sure? Maybe you need some time alone."

"I think too much time alone is what often gets us into trouble."

"I just don't want us to rush things."

She laughed a little. "I'm not promising you a night of hot passion, but I'd like to sleep with you tonight."

While brushing her teeth and changing into her pajamas, she thought about the time when she had been missing. She and Mulder had never really discussed what those months had been like for him. She wasn't admitting that his experiences with Amy were right, but she acknowledged that she was at least trying to put it all into proper context.

Mulder was already in bed, stripped to boxers and a Rolling Stones concert t-shirt he kept in his designated drawer. He took off his glasses and turned back the comforter in invitation. "Mmmm, flannel PJs, Scully. I never would have found that look sexy before you."

For better or for worse, she thought and climbed in beside him.

He switched off the lamp and rolled onto his side. "I'm glad you asked me to stay," he whispered.

It took her a moment to find her words. "We've come so far in the last months, Mulder. As much as I've entertained the idea, I can't just walk away."

"You're a far more forgiving person than I am. If the situation were reversed..."

The face of a dark-haired man, sitting next to her in the booth of a bar, appeared behind her closed eyelids. "Well, there was Ed Jerse."

A look of hurt crossed his face, but he said, "That was different. You didn't pay him, for one thing."

"No, but I used him for sex, all the same." She sighed.

"Loneliness will do some pretty powerful things to a person."

Scully moved in closer, so their bodies were touching. She could feel his body heat through the thin cotton of his nightclothes. "Mulder, I want you to tell me what it was like when I was gone."

She heard the breath catch in his throat. "I can't...I can't put it into words," he stammered. "It was dark, like being sucked into a whirlpool of unending guilt and remorse. I couldn't eat, couldn't sleep. And when I did sleep, I had constant nightmares about you—about the pain and torture you were experiencing, about finding you dead, about never finding you at all."

A single tear began to trickle down her cheek.

He continued, "Being with Amy wasn't just about the sex and the release. It was a twisted way to pretend, for a few minutes, that I hadn't fucked up and lost you. She looked so much like you, Scully; she even smelled like you."

She raised her head off the pillow a little. "She smelled like me?"

There was silence for a long moment. "I don't want to tell you this, Scully, because you're not going to like it. But I also know that you want me to be honest with you."

Her stomach lurched. "Tell me," Scully whispered, and braced herself for more ugly revelations.

"After I saw Amy the first time I found myself at the perfume counter at Nordstrom's, sampling all the perfumes until I found the one that smelled like you. It was like I was sleepwalking, watching myself buying the bottle of Paris and then going to the jewelry department, where—" she heard him inhale, "—where I found a gold cross and chain that was almost exactly like yours. And from then on, I had Amy wear the perfume and cross whenever I saw her."

Scully fought the oncoming sobs building in her chest, but it was a futile effort. It came out in ragged waves, her wet face pressed against his t-shirt.

He wrapped his arms around her and rocked her like a little girl needing comfort after a skinned knee as she gave herself into her sorrow. She wasn't sure, but she thought she heard him crying, too.

Finally, the storm subsided and she pulled away, sniffling and wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her pajamas. Mulder climbed out of bed and returned with some tissues from the bathroom and a glass of water. She wiped her face, blew her nose and gulped down most of the cold water.

Mulder reached for her hand. "I'm sorry, Scully, that was unforgivable."

"No," she said, shaking her head. "I'm not crying because I'm angry with you. I'm crying because it's so damn sad."

It was terribly sad, the thought of Mulder so desperate to have her back he'd tried to re-create her in another woman. It ripped at her heart and made her realize how selfish she'd been not to fully consider how her abduction had affected him.

He lay back down and gathered her in his arms again. "I wish I could go back in time and do it differently this time."

"You can't," Scully whispered. "The only thing we can really do is to choose how we deal with it from now on."

She brought her hand to the back of his neck and kissed him, taking time to explore the contours of his lips and mouth with her tongue.

It was possible she might never fully understand Mulder, or comprehend his need to pay a woman for sex, but she was beginning to remember that, yes, he was a good man who had never intended to hurt her.

Mulder groaned and began to clumsily unbutton her pajama top as they continued to kiss as if afraid ever to part. She felt him hardening against her and she reached down to tug off her panties and bottoms.

He moved down the bed a bit to take a nipple between his lips and suck. With her hands she got him to lift off the bed and she pulled his boxers off.

She felt him smile against her breast and she nearly whimpered with her need to be connected with him as his hand moved down between her legs, where she was rapidly becoming slick with her arousal.

Throwing her head back, she heard herself plead, "Please, Mulder..."

Oh God, were they really going to do this?

Was she ready?

She was, she was.

He lifted her leg over his hip and with one fluid thrust he was inside her, huge and hard. They began to rock together. Her hand reached over to grab his behind and bring him deeper into her. He couldn't go deep enough to satisfy her, she hazily thought as she ground her pelvis and clit into his body.

"Oh," he breathed. "I don't want this to end."

She nodded and clamped her eyes shut as she began to go off in a series of agonizingly slow, gentle waves of pleasure with each languid stroke of his cock into her.

As she came back to reality, he rolled her over and brought her legs high up on his back and the lazy pace ended for good as he rode her hard, gasping with each thrust.

Mulder buried his head in her shoulder and gave a harsh cry as he drove into her for the final, shuddering time and collapsed on her. Once he stopped panting, he kissed her with tender reverence and brushed the damp hair off her forehead.

She couldn't help but smile, and in the faint light she could see him smiling, too. They lay wrapped together in contented silence for a few minutes and then he stumbled off to the bathroom and returned with a damp washcloth for her clean herself up.

Finally they moved together under the covers to meet like two sticky spoons in the dishwasher. Sleep began to pull at Scully as the pleasure slowly faded from her body.

"Hey," he whispered, trailing his hand against her cheek. "I love you, you know."

She smiled and nodded. "I love you, too."

And for the moment, all was right with the world. Perhaps it was simply a momentary thing, but she was going to have to take those brief moments and savor them.

For the first time in days, they slept.

End of Part 3 of 7.


	4. Chapter 4

Amy stepped off the plane warily, scanning the crowd at the gate, wondering if her stalker was walking unseen, watching her. Her intense expression changed to a broad smile, however, when she heard a rich southern voice practically yodel, "Damn, if it isn't little Amy Callahan!"

If there was anyone guaranteed to lift her spirits, it was Lisa. Six feet tall, with a mane of bright blonde hair only girls from Texas were able to grow, Lisa stood out in direct contrast to Amy, who tried her best to blend into the crowd. While she had to attempt to look conservative for hotel work, when she was on her own time, Lisa was flamboyant in the extreme. Amy appraised Lisa's latest fashion concept—violently sharp Manolo stilettos and a clinging white slip dress that showed off her artificial tan. A golden-red fox fur coat was flung over her shoulders, a look that seemed to be capturing the undivided attention of several pilots standing at the check-in desk.

Amy threw her arms around Lisa. "You look like a whore," she said as she hugged Lisa.

"Listen, bitch, if it walks like a duck," Lisa snorted. "You look like a banker, Miss Uptight." With cool blue eyes, she appraised Amy's dark green shift dress and matching cardigan sweater. "Let's get out of here."

On the way to the party, careening down the highway in Lisa's BMW convertible, they blasted the stereo as loud as it would go, the two of them singing along with Madonna.

_Living in a material world, 'cause I am a material girl..._

"Story of my life," Lisa said and they laughed.

The party was in a private room at an Italian restaurant called Fortissimo, a place so hip Amy herself couldn't get reservations. Sixteen of the Tiger Lilies girls showed up, mostly the long-term employees. Girls came and went from the agency. Some couldn't take the regulations and left for less-restrictive agencies. Quite a few were college girls with big loans or debts who quit as soon as they were more financially stable.

We're the professional professionals, Amy thought, as she drank a vodka martini and made small talk with her colleagues. She made a point of having friends from all walks of life, but there was something reassuring about spending an evening in the company of her fellow working women. The conversation was more stimulating when she was with Michael's friends, who were artists, writers and other creative types, but these women truly understood the contradictions of her life.

She was midway through her second glass of Valpollicella and the roast lamb when something occurred to her. She interrupted Lucy and Lisa, who were debating the merits of Michael Kors versus Todd Oldham. "Hey guys, where's  
Vanessa? "

Lucy shrugged her thin shoulders. "She said she was coming tonight, but you know Vanessa..."

Unfortunately, Amy did know Vanessa. Vanessa had been the one who'd provided her introduction to the agency in the first place and remained her oldest call girl friend. Twice that year Vanessa had been suspended from the agency for flunking random drug tests. She'd spent some time cleaning up in the prairies of Minnesota at Hazelden, and seemed to be doing better. Now, as she finished her last bite, Amy hoped her friend hadn't relapsed.

Joanne stood and tapped her wineglass. "I want to propose a toast to Deborah. She's off to LA for a whole new world. Who would think that professional life would be the ultimate springboard to writing for the new Adam Sandler sitcom?"

The assembled women laughed and toasted Deborah, who serenely grinned and sipped her wine.

Around 3 a.m., Amy and Lisa wound up at Lisa's apartment, stumbling on their heels and laughing at how disheveled the convertible had made their hair.

"It's good to see you havin' some fun," Lisa said, removing her shoes. "You're always so serious."

"That's how I am, Lisa," she said. "I've always been a serious, directed kind of person." She giggled at how hard it was to get the words out when she was drunk on good wine.

"Well, don't you worry about any stalker. Security is good in this building and I got a big-ass gun and I'm not afraid to use it. I was the Holton County Fair Girl's Shooting Champion when I was eleven."

Amy flopped onto the purple velvet couch and laughed until her stomach hurt and the mascara ran down her cheeks. She realized it had been months since she'd felt so free and relaxed.

The next morning, the two women cured their hangovers with orange juice and strong coffee and headed off to Amy's apartment, so she could pick up her laptop computer and some more clothes for her stay in New York.

As they headed up the stairs, Amy's heart started rapidly beating. She stopped at the landing, suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness.

"You okay, honey?" Lisa asked, resting her hand on Amy's arm.

Amy nodded and gulped. There was a tingling in her hands, a sensation she only got when something terrible was about to happen. "I have a bad feeling," she whispered.

"You've been going through some rough stuff," Lisa said. "Of course you're going to have a bad feeling about going home."

In her purse, Amy looked for her gun and realized it was still in her apartment, since she'd flown to New York and back, and couldn't bring it along. It wasn't a reassuring thought.

She unlocked the door and they both warily stepped inside. The living room was untouched from the day Jess was killed; the cup of tea she'd been drinking was still resting on the coffee table. Amy breathed a sigh of relief and headed off to the bedroom, shaking her head at how over-dramatic she was being.

"Hey Lisa," she called out, "Can you go in the hall closet and—"

Her words abruptly stopped as she stepped over the threshold of the bedroom.

She couldn't make another sound as she stood, paralyzed, in the doorway. In her bed was Vanessa, nude, with her arms splayed out at each side of her body. Her head was tipped back to display the long slash that ran from ear to ear.

Vanessa's blue eyes were large and open, appearing to stare right at her.

No, she couldn't possibly make another sound.

Neither could Vanessa.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully shivered as she ran from where she'd parked her car up the block to Mulder's apartment. In her arms was a paper bag full of the ingredients for making lasagna, and several bottles of wine. They'd parted company an hour before at the office and she'd decided, on the way home, to surprise him.

These days, the pretense of knocking was over. She fished out her key and unlocked the door, expecting to see him on the couch, watching the news as he normally did after work. Instead, the living room was empty. Curious.

She dropped the bags on the kitchen table and headed for the bedroom. The door was shut, but she pushed it open.

The breath caught in her throat. Mulder was in bed, but he wasn't taking an early-evening nap. He was lying on his back, his face a contorted mask of ecstasy as a woman crouched between his spread legs, her head bobbing up and down.

The woman had red hair.

She wanted to scream, to turn on her heel and march out of the bedroom, but she was paralyzed, watching Mulder as he shut his eyes and groaned as he came into the mouth of the redhead.

Mulder looked up and noticed her standing there. Instead of looking alarmed or ashamed, he merely started laughing, as if her presence were the most amusing thing he'd ever seen.

The woman lifted her head and brushed her hair out of her blue eyes, licking a droplet of come off her lower lip with her tongue. She, too, started laughing.

And then Scully knew she was dreaming, because the woman in bed with Mulder was herself.

She sat up and found herself in her own bedroom, alone.

Oh wonderful, she thought, now this whole Amy situation is invading my dream life, too.

Stretching, she glanced at the clock and realized it was about time to get up and start getting ready for work. It was drizzling a little outside and she just wished she could spend the day languishing in bed, drinking tea and reading a good, cozy novel.

The ringing of the phone made her jump a little.

"Hello?" she mumbled into the receiver.

It was Mulder's scratchy voice that greeted her. "Morning, sunshine, up and at 'em."

"Since when do I get wake up calls?" she grumbled.

"Well, usually I just get to nudge you..." He had spent the night at his apartment, at her request. While she was certainly coming to accept the Amy situation, she'd needed to spend the evening in her own company.

"I had the oddest dream," she said.

"Oh yeah? Was I in it and if so, was I naked?"

Scully decided to let that comment pass without further comment. "Is there something going on?" she asked.

His voice immediately turned professional. "Yeah, get dressed and meet me at Amy's apartment. She came home this morning to find a body in her bed."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The drizzle had turned to a full-scale downpour by the time he reached Amy's building. Scully's car was pulling up just as he parked. The many police cars and the waiting ambulance were a testament to the gravity of the situation inside the small brownstone building.

He fumbled for his umbrella and caught up with Scully just as she was about to head inside.

"Do you know who the body is?" she asked without preamble.

Trying to be a gentleman, he opened the door for her. "Amy was pretty incoherent on the phone, but it sounds like it's a friend of hers."

"Oh God," she said as they began to climb the staircase. "He's escalating."

Exactly, Mulder thought. The phone calls and the following weren't enough anymore to satisfy this man's impulses, nor was killing Amy's pet. He needed to kill real live women now, and Amy was most likely next.

At the top of the stairs was a uniformed police officer. "You can't go in there, folks, it's a crime scene."

Mulder flashed his badge. "We're with the FBI."

The cop nodded his head. "Doesn't matter, the forensic team and the photographer are working in there."

Scully spoke up. "Who is the detective in charge?"

"Watters is on this case. He's next door, questioning the woman who found the body." The officer jerked his thumb towards the second door on the landing.

They walked through the door and found a few uniformed officers talking in low voices, and Amy sitting on the couch, hunched over as if in great pain. Even from the doorway Mulder could see how white her face was, and how haunted her eyes looked.

There were two men with Amy. The one sitting in the green chair opposite the couch was obviously the homicide detective, given the wash and wear suit which made him an unlikely candidate to occupy such expensive real estate. The other man sat next to Amy on the couch, his arm around her. He was in his fifties, a well-built man in khakis and pink button-down shirt, with thick silver hair.

One of the officers walked up to them. "Can we help you with something?"

This time, Scully flashed her badge. It was funny how they'd developed an unspoken rhythm over the years about that sort of thing. "Agents Scully and Mulder, FBI," she said.

"Who called the feds in on this?"

"We're actually friends of Ms. Callahan," Mulder said. "Can we talk to Detective Watters?"

Amy looked up at the sound of Mulder's voice, but the drawn expression on her face didn't alter.

The detective rose, tugging at his trousers as he stood. "You need something, folks?"

Mulder flashed his badge, beginning to be sick of the exercise. "What's going on here?"

"It seems Miss Callahan came home this morning to find her friend, Vanessa Maitland, dead in her bed. Throat slit and she appears to have been sexually assaulted, although we'll have to hear more on that one from the M.E.," the detective said in a voice that betrayed his southern origins.

"Any idea on time of death?" Scully asked.

"Nope. I'd say, just by eyeballing it, sometime last night, but again, we'll need to get that from the autopsy. Is this part of an active case for you guys?"

"No," Mulder shook his head. "Ms. Callahan is a friend of ours, and asked for some help when she began to get disturbing phone calls."

"Yeah, that's what she said. And that he killed her dog. Sounds like we got ourselves a possible serial killer," said the detective, giving his pants another hitch over his belly.

"Can we talk to her?" Scully asked in a soft voice.

"We're about done with her for now, but I want her to come down this afternoon for a more comprehensive interview. She had a friend with her," Detective Watters looked down at his notepad, "named Lisa Horton. We already sent her home."

"We'd just like to ask Ms. Callahan a few questions."

Watters indicated with a tilt of his head that they were welcome to have a crack at interviewing Amy.

They walked over to the sofa where Amy and the silver-haired man were sitting. Mulder dropped down into a squat, to look Amy in the eye.

"Amy?" he said softly.

The older man's arm tightened around Amy's shoulders. "I'm Ms. Callahan's lawyer," he said. "How much longer are you people going to question her?"

She glanced over her at him, and smiled faintly. "It's okay, Richard. He's a friend of mine."

"I'm not another police detective," Mulder explained. "I'm with the FBI, here unofficially because Amy asked for my help. My name is Mulder, and this is my partner, Agent Scully."

The man's wary posture relaxed. "Richard Haskell," he said, reaching out to shake Mulder's hand without getting up. "I'm Amy's next door neighbor."

"I told you about Richard, remember?" said Amy, looking up at Mulder. "He and his wife keep my extra key for me." She turned and smiled fleetingly at the older man. "You don't have to tell everyone you're my lawyer, Richard. That's very sweet of you."

Haskell actually blushed. Interesting, Mulder thought. He'd never seen a lawyer blush before. For an older, married man whom Amy trusted completely, Richard Haskell seemed awfully susceptible to Amy's smiles.

"You live here next door, Mr. Haskell?" Mulder asked, straightening. "Did you see or hear anything unusual?"

Haskell shook his head. "The police cars were the first indication I had that anything was wrong. As soon as I saw them I thought of Amy, and checked to make sure she was safe."

"Did your wife hear anything?" Scully asked.

"No, she's been in Seattle for the past week, visiting her sister," said Haskell.

Beside him, fresh tears slid down Amy's face. "I can't believe how horrible this is. I keep thinking it's a nightmare, and I'm going to wake up, but I don't."

"I thought you were in New York, Amy," Mulder said. "You told us you were going to stay with your boyfriend for a while."

"I know," she said, wiping at her tears, "but I came back for a friend's retirement party."

"You should have let us know," Mulder said. "We could have put a tail on Marchand. If we'd had him under surveillance this might never have happened."

"This isn't my fault!" Amy said, shifting her head so she was looking at her shoes. "I never knew he would hurt someone else. I'm the one he's been sending the pictures to. I'm the one he's been calling. Vanessa was my friend. Do you think I wanted this to happen?"

"You can't blame her for this," said Haskell, with more than a hint of anger.

"Of course not. I didn't mean that," said Mulder quickly. "I just meant that it's dangerous here, and we could have taken precautions—"

"I took precautions!" Amy cried. "I stayed with a friend last night, and I haven't been alone for a second since I got back into town. How was I supposed to know he would go after Vanessa?"

"Would Marchand have known that Vanessa was a friend of yours?" Scully asked behind Mulder.

Amy shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe. I only met him the one time, but if he's been stalking me...and she did work for Tiger Lilies." She swept tears from her eyes. "Vanessa is the person who introduced me to the agency, in fact."

"Did Vanessa have any reason to visit your apartment last night?" Mulder asked.

Again Amy shook her head. "No. She didn't have a key anyway. She couldn't have gotten in on her own."

"Okay, Amy," Mulder said, his voice low and sympathetic. "Scully and I are going to have a look around for a little while. If you think of anything else that seems important, let us know."

He walked out toward the landing, Scully falling into step beside him. "We have a problem, Scully," he said to her once they were out of Amy's hearing. "If Vanessa didn't go to Amy's apartment on her own, the killer must have brought her here. He could have picked a more opportunistic target—a neighbor, a passer-by. Instead he targeted Vanessa."

Scully nodded. "Another prostitute."

"Exactly. And that changes the profile drastically. This isn't just some sociopath who is getting a thrill from trying to scare Amy. Instead he sees himself as a missionary, a crusader. He wants to eliminate 'immoral' elements in his world. In his eyes, that includes women like Amy and Vanessa."

"What about the phone calls? Those didn't sound angry to you?"

Mulder frowned. "They don't really fit, do they?" he admitted. "But that was before he escalated to killing Amy's dog, and now to taking a human life. Maybe it was an effort to get our attention somehow, to publicize his crusade." He shook his head. Even he was not entirely satisfied with his explanation.

"What did you think of Haskell?" Scully asked. "Did he seem especially friendly to you?"

Mulder glanced at her. "You noticed that too, huh? And in some respects he fits the rest of the profile. This is someone who appears normal on the outside, who doesn't exhibit any obvious psychosis, but who is inwardly driven by a hunger for justice. He'll be Caucasian, and have above average intelligence. Only the age doesn't fit. He should be someone younger, twenty-five to forty I would say."

"That doesn't fit Marchand, either."

Mulder shrugged. "Profiles are rarely perfect. I'm good, but even I would never make that claim."

"You're modest, too," said Scully, deadpan.

The door to Amy's unit opened, and a forensic photographer came out, slinging his camera over his shoulder. "How long until the rest of the investigative team can view the scene?" Scully asked him.

"We're just finishing up," the photographer said. "If you move fast, you should be able to have a look before the coroner takes the body."

They signed the crime scene log, and went into Amy's apartment. Nothing appeared grossly disturbed, Mulder noted as they moved carefully toward Amy's bedroom. From the sleek modern furniture to the bright paintings on the walls, everything looked not only normal, but also inviting.

That was, until they walked into the bedroom. Then there was no way of avoiding the cold, vacant stare of Vanessa Maitland's dead eyes, or the purposely lewd way in which her blood-spattered body had been posed. Mulder felt his stomach tighten. He'd seen victims hundreds of times, and yet the first glimpse of a dead body was always disturbing.

He shut those feelings off, and clicked resolutely into profiling mode. He noted the way the body was positioned—nude, centered on the bed, arms and legs spread wide, the murder wound prominently displayed. Whoever had killed Vanessa Maitland, he thought, had obviously intended the discovery of her body to make the maximum possible impact.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully stood on the other side of the bed from Mulder and looked at the body of Vanessa Maitland. It seemed such an obscene and humiliating way to die, spread nude and bloody in front of a room full of strangers, people who knew nothing about what kind of person Vanessa had been—what she'd wanted to be when she grew up, what she'd dreamed of when she closed her eyes, what she had been thinking as the killer began to cut her throat.

She shivered. She was fairly inured to death, given her profession, but there were times when it could get to even her.

She bent more closely and examined the slash on Vanessa's neck. The wound was clean, not jagged, which indicated to her that the same kind of blade which had been used on Amy's dog had also killed Vanessa.

Her eyes flicked over to Mulder and she saw he was deep inside his head, trying to put the pieces together into some kind of coherent pattern. It was always fascinating to watch Mulder in profiling mode, the way his breathing became more even, as if he were sleeping, and his eyes slowly tracked back and forth over the still body of Vanessa.

With a sigh, she stepped out of the bedroom and back into the living room. There wasn't much she could tell from the condition of the body without an autopsy.

A masculine voice made her lift her head. "Dana Scully, as I live and breathe."

She smiled to see John McMillan, the coroner who was obviously handling the Vanessa Maitland case. She'd been part of a panel discussion with him at a forensics conference a year or so before, and had since run into him a time or two at various crime scenes around the city. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with sandy brown hair and a perpetually bemused expression behind wire-rimmed glasses.

"Hello John," she said. She made to offer her hand for a shake but realized he was still wearing gloves.

"So why are you guys interested in this one?"

"My partner and I are here unofficially. Amy Callahan asked for some help with a stalker a week or so ago."

John made a thoughtful noise. "Any thoughts you want to share with me?"

She shrugged. "Not much from my end, I'm afraid. Her dog was killed last weekend. I examined the body and it appeared to have been done with a straight razor."

"That's what Maitland's wound looks like. She has a few defensive wounds, too. A few of her fingernails are broken. I can't help but think that somewhere out there, there's a guy with a few scratches on him."

"There's a pleasant thought," Scully said. "When are you doing the autopsy?"

"This afternoon. Why, you want in, Dana?" He leaned closer to her, so close she caught a faint whiff of his cologne. Oh God, was John trying to pick her up at a crime scene? Strangely enough, the idea didn't bother her all that much. He was good-looking, smart and they certainly had things in common. In fact, he was the kind of man her mother made novenas to various saints for.

"I don't think it's necessary. It's a city case, not federal. And I trust your skills. But how about giving me a call when you're done, with the interesting details?"

A smile spread on his face. "I can do that. Just one little thing..."

"What's that?" she asked, feeling her heart rate pick up a little. He _was_ going to ask her out.

"If you'll meet me for a drink, it's a done deal." His smile got wider.

Okay, let the poor man down easy, she thought. As attractive as he was, she really wasn't torn for more than half a second.

"That's a sweet thought," Scully said, forcing herself to smile. "but I don't think it's possible."

He stepped back. "Oh, I see. Is that a nice, roundabout way of saying you're taken?"

She nodded. "Yes, I suppose it is."

"I can deal with that, as long as it's not my personality or my breath. And I'm such a nice guy, I'll call you anyhow."

Thanking him, Scully handed him one of her cards and walked out of the apartment. She never liked having to reject someone, especially a man as nice as John. A few years before, she might have taken him up on his offer, but everything was different now. There was Mulder.

Inside the Haskell's apartment, Detective Watters was yammering away on his cell phone, while Amy remained huddled on the couch. Richard Haskell was nowhere in sight.

Scully sat next to Amy and forced her voice to be gentle. "You okay?"

Amy shook her head.

"Did you tell the detective about the phone calls and Marchand?"

Another nod from the other woman.

"Good, that's good."

"I had to tell him...what I do..." Amy said in a near-whisper.

"He's not going to arrest you for that."

"I know." Amy sighed a little and Scully wondered what it would be like to be ashamed to tell people what she did for a living.

Amy looked up and her eyes were large and swollen from crying. "I have to go to the police precinct and be interviewed again. I can't do it. All I want to do is go back to New York and be with Michael."

Scully nodded. "I know that's what you want to do, but you need to talk to the police if you want this monster to be caught."

Mulder walked in the room and motioned for her to come over.

"What's up?" she asked.

"We have to do something about Amy," he said.

She tilted her head. "Isn't that what we're doing right now?"

He shook his head. "No, what I mean is that she can't go to New York. I don't think she's safe anywhere right now. We have to protect her."

"And what does that entail?" Her back instinctively stiffened.

"I was thinking we should get a hotel room, under an assumed name, and one of us should stay with her until the case breaks."

Scully inhaled sharply. "And which one of us is that going to be?"

It wouldn't be him, of course, which meant she'd have to go to ground with Amy. Impossible.

"I guess it would have to be you." Mulder's face took on an apologetic expression.

"You can't be serious, Mulder. First of all, what happens on Monday, when I'm supposed to be at work? And to be perfectly honest with you, I don't want to do it."

"As far as work goes, we'll figure something out, some excuse for Skinner. And the other thing, well, I don't see any way around it."

For the eight millionth time, she deeply regretted that Mulder had answered the phone that night.

She looked right at him. "You are going to owe me for this," she muttered.

He nodded and his brow creased in guilt and anxiety. Scully knew him too well to not be able to read the signs. "I hate having to do this to you, but you know it's the right thing to do."

Damn him, he was right. She hated it when that happened.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder had reserved a room at the Sheraton near National Airport, under the name of Tara McCauley. It was her sister-in-law's maiden name and she didn't dare ask where he'd gotten a Visa card in her name. Scully shrugged as she signed the receipt at the front desk. No doubt the card was the work of the Lone Gunmen. It made sense, though, to check into the hotel with an assumed name. There was no guessing how much the killer knew about Amy.

The room was large, but certainly no suite. Scully walked in, with Amy trailing behind her, and prayed they would have to lie low in the room for no more than a day or two. Spending all day, every day, in a mauve and cream hotel room with the prostitute her lover had slept with wasn't exactly her idea of a good time. No, it definitely ranked behind identifying stomach and rectal contents on a hot summer afternoon in an autopsy bay with no air conditioning.

Amy tossed her black Prada overnight bag on one of the beds and opened the heavy flowered draperies, staring at the dull view of Airport Hotel Gulch.

"Well, here we are," Scully said, for lack of something better.

Absently, the other woman nodded without turning around.

Scully sat on the bed, tugged off her shoes and checked her watch. It was almost 5 p.m.; the day was still young and the hours until it was time to go to bed seemed endless.

Amy stepped away from the window and announced, "I'm going to take a shower." Scully noticed how white her face was and felt a pang of sympathy. After all, Amy had lost a friend and worse yet, she'd been the one who'd found her body.

Amy grabbed a toiletry case and some clothes from her bag and walked off to the bathroom. After a few minutes the shower started up, but it didn't quite muffle the sound of Amy's sobbing.

Scully felt like the worst kind of voyeur, sitting in the next room and listening to the wails over the spray of the shower. Truthfully, she wasn't much good at dealing with the grief and pain of others. It was one thing when Mulder's mother had died a few months before. Mulder was her lover by then and she'd been his partner for six years. She'd known how to handle his sorrow after all that time together. Amy Callahan was an entirely different story.

There was a reason why she'd become a pathologist, aside from the gratification she received from solving difficult cases with her science. She just didn't have a good bedside manner.

Still, no matter how she felt about her, Amy was a woman in pain. Scully would just have to make the effort.

Amy came out twenty minutes later, dressed in an old pair of jeans and a plain white t-shirt, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed. Not for the first time, it struck Scully how much the call girl looked like her. Amy's face was a bit rounder and her nose was more snub-shaped than Scully's own high-bridged nose, but the effect was still uncanny.

"Are you okay?" Scully asked, putting down the book she'd been pretending to read.

Sitting down on the opposite bed, Amy shook her head. "I feel like shit," she flatly said.

"It's rough at first, to lose someone. Especially when you feel like it's your fault. Believe me, I know," Scully said, drawing her legs up under her and leaning against the headboard of the bed.

"What would you know about something like this?" Amy flopped onto her back and covered her eyes with her arm.

"A whole lot," she replied, remembering her sister lying in a hospital bed, still covered with tubes and bandages, the monitors gone flat and quiet. "My sister was murdered three years ago. She was shot in my apartment and the bullets were meant for me."

The arm lifted off Amy's face and she sat up. "Are you serious? Oh God, I'm so sorry."

Scully nodded. "I blamed myself for a long time, let the guilt eat at me every day. But the thing is, I didn't ask for someone to break into my apartment and wait to ambush me, I didn't ask to be murdered, so how could it possibly be my fault? Melissa was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a horrible tragedy that she was killed, but it was _not_ my fault. The man who pulled the trigger bears full blame."

Amy sighed. "Wow, your sister. If someone killed one of my sisters, I don't know if there would be a great enough form of revenge."

It was funny—Scully had never stopped to consider that Amy had a family. "How many sisters do you have?"

"Two—one older and one younger. Patti and Erica. And two younger brothers, named Tom and Chris. My parents are good Catholics." A wry smile spread on Amy's face.

"Does your family know what you do for a living?" Scully hoped it wasn't an inappropriate question.

"No." Amy vehemently shook her head. "They wouldn't understand. They think I'm a very successful art dealer. I hate lying to my family, but I want to spare them the pain the truth would cause them. And it's not entirely a lie, since I do some of that work on the side, from time to time."

Scully realized she could understand that feeling as well. While she never lied outright to her mother, there were the small sins of omission. Her mother had little concrete idea of how dangerous her life often was. The poor woman worried enough.

"You don't mind me asking questions, do you?" Scully asked. She hated having her own life pried into, and didn't want to offend Amy.

Amy shrugged. "No, I don't really mind. I'm not ashamed to be a professional woman. I make a lot of money and have the free time I need to pursue my interests—to travel, take classes, collect art. Frankly, I think a lot of the shame I'm supposed to feel comes from society. It's my body, why can't I use it to have a nice lifestyle?"

"That's a hard concept for me to grasp."

"Why is that?"

Fair was fair. If she were going to ask Amy questions, she'd have to answer some of her own. "All my life I've struggled to get past being viewed as a weak woman or an object of sexual desire. I've always wanted to be recognized for my intelligence and skills. When I was in medical school I thought the attitude I caught from some of my male classmates was obnoxious, but it was nothing compared to going through FBI Academy. I can't imagine willingly being treated as a sex object." She looked down at her hands and realized they'd balled into fists.

Amy nodded and Scully noticed that without makeup, the younger woman had a fine sprinkling of freckles across her nose and cheekbones. "I can appreciate how hard that must have been. But I've turned the concept around. If men want to look at me as a piece of meat, fine, go ahead. I just laugh and head off to the bank to deposit my money." She spread her hands wide. "I know I'm more than that. I know what I'm worth as a person."

Scully briefly wondered about the tough center that appeared to be beneath the surface of this outwardly amiable young woman. God, to offer her body to any man who waved money at her. The thought made her vaguely nauseated.

This woman sitting across from her had touched Mulder, made him come.

Judge not, lest you be judged, she reminded herself.

But she couldn't help asking just one more question. Her voice was soft. "Don't you find it degrading?"

Amy bit her lip. "Sometimes...not all the time, though. You have to understand that I do nice, clean, expensive hotel work. I'm not on the streets hustling for a pimp. Mostly I think it's the men I'm with who are truly degraded by the experience. There's something pathetic when a man can't find the satisfaction he needs from a real relationship, and has to hire a woman by the hour to give him what he wants. It seems so lonely and sad to have to pay for sex, doesn't it?"

Scully thought of Mulder, knocking on the door of a hotel like the one where they were now, waiting for Amy to open it.

A soft hand touched her shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that as an insult to Mulder. I wasn't talking about specific men I've seen, just my clients as a whole."

"It's okay. I'm still trying to get used to this," she said, shaking her head a little.

"I know," came the soft reply from the other bed. "I honestly never wanted to mess things up with you and Mulder when I asked him for help. I was so desperate and he was the only one I could think of to turn to."

Scully looked up and forced a smile. "We'll survive. We always do."

With a deep breath, Scully stood up and found the Room Service menu on the desk. "Maybe we'll both feel better if we eat."

She knew she was changing the subject.

Amy nodded. "I think a bottle of wine would improve things immeasurably."

Scully picked up the phone and dialed Room Service, hoping that bottle of wine would arrive quickly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Olivier Marchand was giving a party. As the maid admitted him, Mulder could hear the distant sound of voices raised in convivial conversation, of laughter and the clink of crystal. He had to work to keep his fury from overtaking him, that Marchand could be hosting a dinner party when Vanessa Maitland lay in the morgue with her throat cut, blood dappling her cold body.

"I'd like to speak to Monsieur Marchand," he'd told the maid when she'd answered the door.

"He's entertaining right now." She'd tried to shut the door in his face, but Mulder had stopped her with a hand on the paneled wood.

"It's an emergency."

Now he stood in the entry hall, looking around at the tasteful Directoire splendor of Marchand's townhouse. The high-ceilinged rooms held striped silk sofas, gleaming mahogany tables, lush drapery, and crystal chandeliers. Apparently diplomats did quite well for themselves, Mulder thought acidly.

Marchand approached, dressed elegantly, a look of irritation on his scarred face. "Yes? You have some other questions to bother me with? I am giving a party."

"Perhaps we ought to step outside for just a moment. It won't take long, and I would hate to disturb your guests." Mulder's voice held an unspoken threat: he could create a scene for Marchand's friends if he so chose.

Marchand frowned, but followed him outside. They rounded the brick face of the building, and stopped in the dark little alley that ran alongside it.

"Now what is this all about?" asked Marchand impatiently. "I've already told you, Mr. Mulder, I'm not interested in your questions."

"You're going to answer them, just the same."

"I've already talked to the police. I don't have to talk to you."

"I'm not leaving until you do."

Marchand swore, and threw a punch at Mulder. Mulder was on his guard, however. He caught Marchand's fist in his hand.

"Let me go," said Marchand angrily, his normally sallow face turning purple with rage. "Let me remind you, I have diplomatic im—"

The last word had not even left his mouth completely before he hit the ground. He blinked in a stupor up at the twilight sky, too dazed by Mulder's punch to react with anything more than a choked gasp.

Mulder leaned over him. "Don't try to pull that fucking 'diplomatic immunity' crap on me. I don't give a fuck about your immunity," he hissed. He grabbed Marchand by the front of his shirt, and hauled him roughly to his feet.

"Get your hands off me! "

Mulder's fist collided with his body.

Marchand doubled over, wheezing and clutching his middle.

"Shut the fuck up! I don't care what kind of immunity you think you have. You think you can do whatever you want, because you're above the law and Amy is supposedly beneath it?"

Marchand shook his head, as if he wanted to deny the charge but lacked the oxygen to answer.

Mulder loomed menacingly over him, his hands clenched into fists. "You killed a woman," he said through his teeth. "I'm going to see to it that you don't get away with it."

Marchand's head snapped up, his eyes wild with alarm. "No! I have killed no one!"

"That's a lie. I know you've been harassing Amy Callahan, I know you killed her dog. And this morning she found the body of her friend Vanessa Maitland in her apartment—her throat slit with a razor."

The color had drained from Marchand's sallow face. "But it was not me! _Mon dieu_, I swear it was not!"

"And I suppose it wasn't you harassing her either."

Marchand grabbed the front of Mulder's jacket. "I called her—I admit I called her. But I wanted only to frighten her, to pay her back a little for what she did to my face. I was angry, yes, and I admit it, but I am not a killer!"

Mulder paused. He did not trust Marchand but there was something in the diplomat's babbling terror that made him think perhaps the man was telling the truth. "You broke into her apartment. You killed her dog."

"No!" cried Marchand desperately. "Even that I did not do! The threats, yes, I made the threats. But I am not some cold-blooded assassin! I have a temper, I do not like Miss  
Callahan, but I wanted only to scare her."

"I know about your juvenile record. You were convicted of attempted murder."

Marchand stared at him in alarm. "How do you know this?"

"Never mind how I know it. It's true, isn't it?"

Marchand stroked his reddened jaw, looking resentfully at Mulder. "It is true. But it was not what you think. Not something, how does one say, premeditated?"

"Oh, so you accidentally attempted to commit murder."

"I was in love, and she was cheating on me. We argued—violently. I hit her, and she grabbed a knife. I grabbed it away from her. She tried to call the police, and when I would have stopped her, she hit me in the face with the telephone. The knife was in my hand, and without even thinking, I stabbed her."

The throb in Marchand's voice and the flash in his eyes told Mulder he was telling the truth. He was a man with an ugly temper, a coward who abused women, but he lacked the patience, the coolness, and the dissociative personality of the serial killer. Mulder swallowed down his anger. "What about the girl in Lisbon, the fourteen-year-old?"

Marchand's eyes glittered. "You do your homework, don't you, Mr. Mulder?" Now that Mulder had stopped throwing punches, a little of his bravado was creeping back. "Yes, the girl was underage, but it was not rape. She was in love with me. I did not force her to do anything she did not want to do. When her mother found out, however, she brought charges—perhaps to save face, perhaps to see if I would pay her off."

"But you admit you made the threatening calls to Amy Callahan."

"Yes, I admit it," Marchand said, almost defiantly. "I wanted to punish her for what she did to me. I had a voice disguiser and I called her whenever the mood took me. usually when I'd had too much to drink."

"And the photographs, you sent her those too."

Marchand looked confused. "Photographs? I don't know what you mean. I never sent that woman anything."

"You never followed her, and sent her pictures of her you had taken?"

Marchand shook his head. "No, certainly not."

Mulder hit him again, hard.

Marchand staggered. "Monsieur, please!" he cried, one hand to his jaw.

"I want the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth! I don't know anything about any photographs!" Shaking, Marchand turned and spat a mouthful of blood onto the asphalt.

Mulder was satisfied. "How did you get her real name, and her phone number?"

Marchand spoke around the swelling in his cheek. "The friend who sent me to Tiger Lilies spotted her one Saturday in a department store, and looked over her shoulder as she paid for something with a credit card. After I knew her name, it was not hard to find her phone number. I know someone who is good with computers."

"My friends' kung fu can beat your friend's kung fu."

"What?" said Marchand in confusion.

"Never mind," said Mulder, and shoved him toward the front of the townhouse. "Go back to your party."

With a last backward look over his shoulder, Marchand slunk quickly away.

"And never try to contact Amy Callahan again," Mulder called after his retreating back.

Marchand was innocent, Mulder thought. He was a bully and a coward, but he was not a murderer. He was not above striking a woman or trying to frighten her with anonymous threats, but he would not risk his own hide to commit a crime as calculated as Vanessa's murder. So who did that leave?

They were back to square one, Mulder thought, rubbing his skinned knuckles. Someone was stalking Amy, someone growing more deadly by the day, and he and Scully didn't have the first idea who. The phone calls had been nothing but a dead end. At least this time he didn't need to worry that Marchand would go to Skinner, not when the diplomat knew they were aware of his attempted murder conviction.

Now the only problem was how to tell Scully all this without revealing the method he'd used to get the information.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy poured the last of the bottle of Cabernet into Scully's glass and leaned against the pillows piled up on the bed. Their dinners had been finished and the plates had already been removed to the hallway. _Desperately Seeking Susan_ was playing on the television, and Amy watched the antics of Madonna and Rosanna Arquette through heavy-lidded eyes. She was exhausted, but afraid to really try and sleep. God only knew what kind of dreams were waiting for her after finding Vanessa's body.

If she closed her eyes, she could only see the blank look in Vanessa's blue eyes, and the deep gash in her neck.

She could see only her friend, helplessly lying on her bed.

No, the last thing she wanted to do at that point was sleep.

The other woman meditatively rolled the wineglass between her fingers and sighed.

"Are you okay?" Amy asked. This was so uncomfortable, sharing a room with Agent Scully like this. She was sure that Scully was a perfectly kind person under normal circumstances, and the agent was trying her best to be civil, but the tension was definitely still in the room.

Scully nodded. "Yeah, I'm just thinking."

"Care to share with the rest of the class?"

After a swallow of wine, Scully set the glass down on the bedside table. "I'm just thinking about Mulder, and you, and me. Such a strange situation we're in here."

Amy nodded. "Tell me about it. I just don't want things to be awkward between you and me here. I've said it before, but I never wanted to ruin things with you and Mulder."

There was another sigh. "I know that, Amy."

She smiled. This was the first time Scully had called her by her first name, and not Ms. Callahan. "Are things going to be okay with you and Mulder?"

Scully turned to her, and Amy noticed how serious and sad her face was. She slowly nodded. "I think so. I'm trying to get more insight into why he felt he had to do what he had to do."

"He was lonely," Amy said. She still could picture his large, haunted eyes and how much he seemed to crave being touched. "He wasn't one of my pathetic loser clients, though. To tell you the truth, I couldn't really understand why he needed to see me. Mulder is the kind of guy who could just stand at a bar and women would be flinging their phone numbers at him."

A tight smile crossed Scully's face.

Amy knew she was pushing it, but she had to ask. "How come you two weren't together then?"

"I don't know," Scully said, shrugging.

"Come on, you can do better than that." Now she really was pushing, but she wanted to know. Amy had had two years to ponder the mystery of her handsome client, and now she could finally have some answers.

"I'm not good with personal stuff, Amy." Her smile became self-conscious. "Especially talking about Mulder."

"That's cool," Amy said.

Scully sat up straighter and ran her hand through her short waves. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Fire away."

Amy noticed how the other woman's pale skin rapidly turned a deep rose. "I have to ask you this, because it's been on my mind. It's like—" her hands fumbled, "—some kind of morbid fascination with me."

"You want to know what it was like with Mulder," Amy cut in. She tried to give Scully a reassuring smile.

The fumbling hands clasped in Scully's lap. "Yes, I want to know," she whispered.

Amy tried to keep her tone as light as possible. "If you're thinking we did anything exotic or kinky, you'll be disappointed. It was pretty routine."

The agent's head lifted and one red-brown eyebrow rose. "I suppose that depends on your definition of routine..."

"Routine as in my parents probably have done everything Mulder and I did." Amy was reassured to hear a small snicker from Scully. "Most of the time he just wanted oral sex. A few times we had straight sex. Like I said, routine."

The whisper became fainter. "What was he like?"

Amy still could picture his nervous, yet excited face the first time he walked into the hotel room, how she could already see the erection bulging his suit pants. "He was polite, sweet, a good tipper. Very passive, let me do all the leading and rarely made any demands of me."

"Passive, Mulder?" Amy was surprised to see an amused grin on Scully's face. How much wine had the woman had to drink, anyhow?

"Yes, passive," she replied. "Very gentle, as if afraid to break me."

"Wow," Scully said and headed for the mini-bar. "Can I get you something?"

"A Diet Coke would be fine," Amy said. Scully returned with two cans of soda. "What do you mean by wow, Agent Scully?"

"It's okay," she said, "You can call me Scully. The only people who really call me Dana are my family and old friends from school. And if we're sharing a room, Agent Scully is going to get old pretty quickly."

"What do you mean by wow, Scully?" she repeated.

"Let's just say that Mulder is the farthest thing in the world from passive..."

Amy smiled. Now things were getting good. Damn, she should have suggested another drink instead of a soda. Then Scully would have _really_ opened up. "Now you just have to share..."

Scully rolled her blue-gray eyes. "I don't do that kind of talk, Amy."

"Bullshit. All women do that kind of talk. Even my sister Erica, who goes to Mass every day, does that kind of talk."

Popping open her can of Diet Coke, Scully got a mischievous expression on her normally stern face. "Mulder is, well," she stammered, "a tremendous lover. He's creative, he's fun in bed, he's very _appreciative_, but the last thing I would say about him is that he's passive. He can do gentle very nicely, but he's never passive, unless I ask him to be that way."

Ooh, now she was sharing. Amy leaned forward, delighted to finally get the goods. So sue me, she thought, I love gossip and boyfriend chat. "Well, a man is usually different when he's with a professional," she said. "Some men who are wimps in real life can be as bossy as they want to be and some men who would be the most wild and crazy lovers with a woman they really care about are passive and shy with a call girl. That's how Mulder was. Not a perfect gentleman, of course, but we weren't hanging off chandeliers or anything."

It pleased her to see a look of relief pass over Scully. "Ever since I found out, I've been worried that maybe he enjoyed the sex more with you, because it was exotic or forbidden."

Amy snorted. "Please. I make no great claims on being the world's greatest lover, although Michael might disagree."

"Is it hard for you to go to bed with Michael after what you do in your professional life?"

She smiled, picturing the last time she'd made love with Michael, how she'd lost herself in wave after wave of intense pleasure and love. "No, not at all. When I'm working my body is doing the job, but my mind and my emotions aren't involved at all. I get no physical pleasure from my job, ever. There's business sex and there's Michael sex."

"And Michael doesn't mind—"

As usual, Amy interrupted. "No, Michael is a breed apart. He's an unusual guy in that respect. He's the most unusual guy I've ever known—intelligent and completely focused on his work and his goals. Michael would probably be too intense for a lot of women, but I find it exciting." Just thinking about Michael was enough to make her crave the touch of his callused hands on her skin. "We don't talk about my work a lot, but he accepts it. I know he'd be happier if I stopped working, and has been asking me to quit and move in with him a lot in the last few years, but I need to make enough money to open my own gallery."

"It sounds like you're a lucky woman," Scully said.

Amy thought of Michael and all their years together, all they had been through together. How he had been the one to rush her to the hospital when an ovarian cyst ruptured, how she'd wake up and find him intently sketching her, how he secretly wrote poetry about her that he was afraid to show her.

She smiled at Scully. "I am a lucky woman," she said.

Scully smiled back at Amy, as if thinking of Mulder and the fact that she was a lucky woman, too.

End of Part 4 of 7.


	5. Chapter 5

Mulder lay on his couch. The television was playing _The Daily Show_, but he wasn't watching it. Instead he was visualizing Vanessa Maitland's body and trying to figure out what it was about the crime scene that nagged at him. A beautiful woman, minimal signs of struggle, a razor applied with surgical skill...

He sighed, and rolled over restlessly. The killer's crimes were obviously escalating—he'd already gone from stalking, to killing Amy's dog, and now to taking a human life. It was only a matter of time before he struck again. The problem was, now that Marchand had been eliminated as a suspect, the killer could be almost anyone. Amy's work had brought her into contact with so many men.

Contact. He flinched a little at his own euphemism. He'd been one of the men with whom Amy had had contact; he knew exactly what that kind of "contact" entailed.

He wondered now why he'd ever felt so compelled to keep seeing her. There had been momentary pleasure, of course—determinedly he pushed from his mind the memory of Amy, whispering encouragement as he panted above her—but there had always been the guilt afterward too. He'd felt lonelier than ever, walking away from a woman he'd just paid to have sex with him. He'd felt dirty, knowing that the real Scully was somewhere, blissfully unaware he'd just spent an hour getting his money's worth from a prostitute he'd been pretending was her. He wondered how Scully and Amy were getting along now, in the hotel by the airport. He wished he could be a fly on the wall. It was a little difficult for him to picture Scully, so reserved and so unwaveringly true to her principles, spending the night with the prostitute he'd patronized. He couldn't help wondering if they were talking about him.

A knock on his door interrupted his reflections. He checked his watch. 11:30. He went to the door and opened it just far enough to see who would be paying him a visit at such an hour.

It was a man, about his own height, with short black hair, handsome features, and a lean build. Except for the sapphire stud in his nose, he looked clean-cut and conservative enough to be a banker or a lawyer.

Mulder's eyes narrowed. It was a little late for someone to come by peddling _The Watchtower_. "Yeah? Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for Amy Callahan."

"Just a minute." Mulder closed the door and retrieved his gun, tucking it behind him in the waistband of his jeans. He went back to the door and opened it all the way. "Who are you?"

The man regarded him somberly. "My name is Michael Corey. I'm Amy's boyfriend."

"Come in."

Michael stepped inside, looking around as if expected to see Amy. "I hope you don't mind my coming here like this. Amy told me earlier this week that you were helping her. I found your address in the phone book."

"Is something wrong? Why do you need to contact her?"

Michael stared at Mulder. "I'm worried about her. I came down to surprise her, because I knew she was upset about her dog. When I got to her brownstone, it was cordoned off and there were policemen everywhere. No one would tell me anything at the scene, not even if Amy was okay or not. I spent a nightmarish couple of hours today thinking she was the reason for all the police cars, until I heard about her friend Vanessa on the radio. And then I got a brief message from her on my answering machine, telling me she wouldn't be able to get in contact with me for a while."

Mulder examined him. He wondered what it was like to be in love with Amy, knowing what she did for a living. He liked to think of himself as a fairly open-minded person, but he wasn't sure he could be as open-minded as that.

"Amy's in a safe place," he told Michael. "Until my partner and I can find out more about who killed Vanessa Maitland, I don't think anyone else should know where she is."

Michael's eyes widened. "But she's my girlfriend. I'm worried about her."

"Then you'll understand why I want to make sure no one, not even you, knows where to find her right now."

"I only want to make sure she's safe," said Michael.

"She's safe," said Mulder. "I'll get your message to Amy, that you're worried about her."

"You mean you're really not going to tell me where she is?" He stared incredulously at Mulder.

"I'm afraid I can't."

"But this is wrong," said Michael. "I mean, how do I know you're not the very person who's stalking her? How do I know she's safe, just because you say she is?" He looked around the apartment again, apparently hoping to spot some clue to Amy's whereabouts.

Mulder ignored the questions. He was intrigued by the nose piercing, so unexpected on a man who otherwise looked conservative enough to pass for one of the young Republicans who hustled up and down the steps of the Capitol every day. "You're an artist?"

"What?" said Michael absently, dragging his attention back to Mulder. "Oh, yeah, I paint contemporary figures. I have a show coming up next month, in fact."

"How did you meet Amy?" Mulder couldn't help wondering about their relationship. Here he was, suffering under a mountain of guilt because of what he'd done with Amy, while Michael lived with her career every day.

Michael sighed, but answered calmly, "Not professionally, if that's what you're thinking. I don't go in for that. I met her through a mutual friend, at a show. Amy's very into the art world, but I guess you knew that."

He hadn't known it, but he nodded anyway. "And you've known her how long?"

"Almost five years now."

Which meant, Mulder thought with a feeling of unpleasant realization, that the two of them had been seeing Amy at the same time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder stood at the hotel room door, wondering for the fifth or sixth time whether this was such a great idea. It was late, nearly 1 a.m., and both women were most likely asleep. He shut his eyes and took a big inhale for strength, smelling the universal hotel hallway smell of room deodorizer and carpeting that had been trod upon by too many pairs of shoes.

No, he thought, shaking his head. He needed to see her; he craved her like a heroin addict craved his next hit of smack. Things were better with Scully, in fact he could say that things were going remarkably well, but he felt that achy need to connect with her, to be sure that it was going to be all right. And he had to tell her about the confrontation with Marchand. An excellent excuse, indeed.

I'm a whipped boy, he mused and smiled at the no longer very painful thought of his pathetic drunken state the other night as he had begged her to love him again. I can't help myself.

He raised his hand and tapped lightly on the door.

Who would answer? It was all too similar to nights standing outside the door at the Marriott, feeling shame and anticipation rushing through his body as he waited for Amy to answer.

There was no response for a minute and he was just about to turn on his heels and head down the hallway with his pride still intact when he heard a feminine voice through the wood. "Who is it?" He couldn't tell which woman it was.

"It's Mulder," he called out.

The door opened a crack and he was rewarded with a sliver view of a few strands of red hair and a suspicious blue eye. There was no mistaking whose suspicious blue eye that was glaring at him. The eye appraised him and apparently he passed muster, for the door opened wider.

Scully was standing in her cream bathrobe, her hair still damp from a shower, holding her gun.

"Is that a gun in your hand or are you just happy to see me?" he said.

"Shh," she admonished. "Amy's asleep." She pulled him by the arm and into the long, narrow bathroom, tiled in white and pink.

Her face was alarmed. "Is there something going on? Did you learn anything new?"

Mulder nodded his head, simply struck dumb by her proximity.

"Ever hear of calling ahead?" She tilted her head and her eyes narrowed. "You scared me."

"Sorry," he said, reaching to run a strand of her hair between his fingers. "I just wanted to talk to you."

"Okay, let's talk." Scully put her hands on her hips and waited for his next words.

The trouble was, he wasn't entirely sure what to say. They'd reached a resolution the other night at her apartment, but he still felt the tension pulsing between them, the unspoken agreement that it wasn't quite right yet between them. Mulder threw up his hands in defeat. "I don't know what to say." The whole Marchand scene had fled his brain now that he was near her.

A full smile blossomed on her face. "That's so cute, Mulder."

"What's so cute?"

"You came by here for what the kids would say was a 'booty call?'"

Mulder snorted a laugh. "A booty call? Who did you pick that one up from, your new roommate?"

She flashed him an indignant look. "I have MTV, Mulder. Despite evidence to the contrary, I do know about things other than pathology and the latest in conspiracy theories."

"I know you do," he said, running his finger in the delicate hollow between her clavicles. Mulder stepped closer and breathed in her baby powder and shampoo smell. "I'd say you know about a lot of things...like how to please a man."

"Hmmm...I _have_ picked up a thing or two over the years, but I wouldn't quite say I'm a professional." She bit her lip and looked at him through her eyelashes. He might have found that comment insulting if he wasn't getting turned on so rapidly.

He laughed as her hand trailed up and under his turtleneck. "Well, you know, the dictionary defines an amateur as 'a person attached to a particular pursuit, especially one who cultivates any study or art, from taste or attachment, without pursuing it professionally.'"

"Is there anything you don't know?"

He tapped his temple. "It's all up here, Scully. Everything."

Scully rolled her eyes. Her hands reached up and pulled his face to hers and he could smell the Colgate on her breath. "I think it's time for you to shut up, Mulder." Her soft lips pressed against his and he opened his mouth to her, letting their tongues twine together.

Scully pulled away and licked her lower lip. Her voice was quiet, but even. "Did she kiss you like that?"

He didn't need to ask whom she meant. Mulder shook his head. "We never kissed. You don't usually kiss working girls."

"Did you learn that from watching _Pretty Woman_?"

Mulder felt his face growing warm. "Uh, yeah, actually I did."

It had never occurred to him to kiss Amy. A kiss was something personal. It was one thing to go to her and have her suck his cock, or to mindlessly pound into her, but to share a kiss with her, it would have been unbearably intimate.

Kissing Amy would have been blurring the lines between her and Scully even farther than he already had been.

Scully's hand slipped between their bodies and her fingers nimbly traced the outline of his hardening cock. "Did she touch you like this?" Her voice was a whiskey-warm hiss.

He shook his head. "Don't—"

"Don't what?"

Words were difficult to find when she was keeping up that maddening little motion with her fingertips, somehow managing to find, even through his jeans, all his favorite spots. "Don't bring her into this," he managed to gasp through the fog of his arousal.

She leaned closer and kissed him again, long and slow, with serpentine movements of her warm tongue. "She'll always be there," she said, pulling away.

Now his mind was completely shattered, especially since she'd begun unbuttoning the fly of his jeans. "But not right now."

The last button was undone and she began to push his jeans down. "I just want to know how I compare, Mulder." Her look wasn't insecure, but playful.

Fine, I'll play along, Scully. "I think I'll have to do a comparison test," he said in a businesslike voice. "You know, to be able to make a fair assessment."

She scrabbled to remove his turtleneck and flung it somewhere in the general direction of the toilet. Mulder shivered in the chilly bathroom air and turned off the overhead light and turned on the heat lamp, so the room was bathed in an obscene red glow.

He started to undo the knot on her bathrobe sash and she pulled away. "No," she said, with one of her familiar stern looks. "I'm in charge this time." Her hands ran over his chest and her tongue began nipping and tasting, stopping to greedily suck at his nipples. His hands flew back to grasp the bathroom vanity, since his leg muscles had abruptly decided to not hold his body weight any longer.

Scully slid onto her knees and he felt her hot breath on his belly, which made the little hairs there stand up. She looked up at him, large eyes glowing in the strange light of the heat lamp. "Is this what she'd do, Mulder? Did she kneel in front of you like this?"

Usually he'd sat on the bed, while Amy kneeled in front of him on one of the pillows from the bed.

Her fingers hooked around the waistband of his plaid boxers. "Did she undress you or did you do it for yourself?" The boxers were removed and he felt just the merest whisper of her fingers along the length of his erection.

He tried to act nonchalant, but it was difficult when she grasped him at the root and squeezed, the other hand cupping and stroking his balls. "Both," he gasped and she gave a close-lipped smile.

"Did it feel like this, Mulder?" she purred and then he felt the velvet heat of her mouth around his cock.

It had never felt like that with Amy.

Only Scully could make him feel like this.

Only Scully had that delicate, yet firm way of teasing the head of his cock with her wet tongue, swirling it around like he was the whipped cream on top of her morning mocha. Only she made those happy humming sounds from time to time as she flicked her tongue against the ridge of his head. And she was the only one who could make him stifle a howl as she allowed most of him in her mouth and throat, taking him in as far as he could go, applying precise pressure with that glorious mouth of hers.

But she still had a few tricks up her sleeve, he found out. He had never underestimated Scully's abilities, but he hadn't fully considered their depth and breadth.

She allowed him to slip out of her mouth and he sucked in air, wanting only for her to return. With a tiny grin, she brought her fingers to her mouth and licked them, which made him grasp the countertop still harder, the breaths coming out of him with increasing rapidity. Scully returned to him, tenderly cupping his testicles in her hand, and resumed her talented sucking. And then he felt her hand slip further still and press against his perineum. "Oh my—" he wheezed. She wasn't done with him, though. Her finger moved an inch and then pressed up and into his asshole.

Mulder jerked back against the counter, a groan escaping his throat. Her finger moved deeper inside and the red air around him began to be speckled with the black of his pain and pleasure. His cock went deeper into her mouth and she began to slowly fuck him with her finger.

Jesus Christ, he'd never felt anything like that. Never. He was feeling nerve endings he'd had no idea even existed before now. Mulder looked down and saw her hair, phosphorescent in the warm light and felt the surge building.

He couldn't help it, he bellowed as his orgasm struck him and he pumped endlessly into her mouth.

He was still gasping and whimpering a bit as she removed her finger and pulled away from his cock. One sculpted red eyebrow raised. "Trying to wake up our friend?"

Burying his head in his hands, he shook his head. "You are evil," he hissed.

She kissed him just above the navel. "Didn't you like it?"

"I'm not entirely sure there's a superlative that's appropriate in this case, Scully."

"I'm just giving you payback, " she said, settling on the ground and pulling her bathrobe around her. "Remember that night in my shower?"

His legs finally gave up the ghost and he slid down to join her on the tile floor.

"Come here," he said and kissed her, tasting the bleachy tang of his come in her mouth.

"I'm glad you came," she said.

He bit back a stupid pun and kissed her again. After a minute he pulled away. "I forgot, Scully, but I have Marchand news."

"Yeah? Do share, now that we have the pressing business out of the way..." Her eyebrow rose.

Mulder sat up a little and ran a hand through his hair. "I confronted him tonight. Marchand made the phone calls, but he didn't kill the dog or Vanessa Maitland."

"You confronted him?" She lifted his hand and examined his bruised knuckles. "Oh, Mulder," she said, shaking her head. "You didn't."

He nodded guiltily. "It was the only way. But I'm sure now that while he's a creep, he's not a sociopath."

He watched raptly as Scully's face hardened and transformed into professional mode. "Are you sure? He seemed like a guilty man."

"I talked at great length with the man tonight, and I can give you my professional opinion, as a profiler, that Olivier Marchand did not kill anyone in this case. These murders were done by someone calculating and composed. After spending more time with him, I can tell you that he doesn't even appear intelligent and cunning enough to commit escalating serial crime."

Scully made an unreadable noise. "Why did he make the phone calls then?"

Mulder touched his face. "He's angry about the scars; he wants revenge."

"Well, this is not good news. It means our only lead has gone down the tubes and the murderer is an entirely unknown quantity to us."

In unison, they both sighed.

Despite the heat lamp, a shiver ran through Mulder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy woke up suddenly from an uneasy sleep, and felt momentarily confused. Looking around at what she immediately recognized as a hotel room, she was not sure why she was there. Had she fallen asleep with a client? She never did that.

Then she heard voices, low but unmistakable, from the other side of the bathroom door, and it all came flooding back to her: Vanessa was dead, and someone was almost certainly trying to kill her, too. She was staying at the airport Sheraton, sharing a room with Agent Scully.

A few hot tears sprang to her eyes and she kicked her legs under the sheets, wondering when her life had become so surreal. She was Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole.

She sat up, listening to the voices coming from behind the door. Mulder had apparently arrived while she was sleeping. She cocked her head, trying to tell if he had any important news. She couldn't make out any words, just low murmuring.

Then she heard something that surprised her: a moan.

Hmmm, she thought, and couldn't help smiling. So, they weren't just talking.

She tried her best not to listen after that. She didn't have a prudish bone in her body, but she wanted to respect their privacy. Still, the room was small enough and the wall between the bedroom and the bathroom was thin enough that it was impossible not to hear. First came a moan from Mulder, and a muffled humming from Scully that hinted her mouth was otherwise occupied. Then Amy heard a breathless "Oh my—" from Mulder, followed by a groan and the sound of panting. "Oh, oh, oh," Mulder gasped.

Amy rolled over and hugged one of the extra pillows. This wasn't fair, she thought wistfully. As if she hadn't felt lost and alone enough already, now she could hear two lovers ecstatically getting it on in the very next room. Not even the next hotel room—the bathroom not ten feet from where she was lying.

It was making her miss Michael even more. When this nightmare was all over with and she could be with him again, she promised herself, she was absolutely going to fuck his brains out. No, not fuck, she reminded herself. She was going to make love to him, long and slow, riding him until they were both exhausted and dripping with sweat.

If she could just be with Michael, everything would be all right again.

Suddenly there was a loud shout from Mulder, which echoed from the tiled space of the hotel bathroom. Bingo, Amy thought wryly. Nice work, Scully.

She heard some rather pitiful whimpering from Mulder after that, followed eventually by the soft murmur of more conversation. This time she did catch something about the case, the names "Vanessa" and "Marchand." She strained to hear, but the agents' voices were too low.

Finally the door swung open, spilling the red glow of the bathroom heat lamp into the rest of the room. Mulder and Scully came creeping out, moving as quietly as possible.

"Any news?" Amy asked them and snapped on the bedside lamp.

They both wheeled around, wearing the sheepish but slightly goofy expressions of two people who had been caught having sex in a bathroom. Scully even blushed.

Mulder recovered first. He cleared his throat. "No big breakthroughs."

"We were just, uh, talking in the bathroom so we wouldn't wake you," Scully added.

Amy tried not to grin. "That was very considerate of you."

Scully tightened the belt on her bathrobe self-consciously. "Mulder was telling me that he doesn't think Marchand is responsible after all."

"He made the phone calls," Mulder clarified. "But not the rest."

The news wiped all thought of everything but her stalker from Amy's mind. Her brows drew together in an anxious frown. "So you're telling me the investigation has taken a step backwards?"

"We'll find whoever did this, Amy," Scully said. "It's just a matter of time."

"But how much time? No offense, Scully, but hiding in a hotel with you for an indefinite period is not my idea of La Dolce Vita. I miss my life. I miss Michael."

"He came by, looking for you tonight," Mulder said.

Amy sat back in surprise. "Michael was here?"

"No, he came by my apartment," Mulder said. "He wanted me to tell you that he's worried about you."

Michael must be worried sick, Amy thought. He must have gotten her phone message and frantically caught the first shuttle down. Frustration and helplessness washed over her.

It didn't cheer her any to have to pretend that she couldn't hear Mulder and Scully when they whispered their good-byes, an odd blend of professional content and flirtatious, post-coital delivery. Sleeping in the same room with Scully was not especially comforting, either, not when she thought about how she'd rather be sleeping with Michael. She felt alone and confined, like a prisoner denied conjugal visits.

She rolled over and turned off the light and heard Scully climb into bed. For a long time she lay in the dark, listening as the other woman's breathing became slow and even.

Think of something nice, she told herself. Sleep will come if you remember a good time. Amy shut her eyes and pictured the time she and Michael went to Maine, walking on the shore of the Atlantic, laughing at the seagulls and eating lobster rolls.

Eventually everything went dark for her, too.

But she woke an hour or so later and realized she'd never get back to sleep. She was wired and jittery, her heart beating a mile a minute.

She glanced at the phone. Remembering that awful moment when they'd found Vanessa's body, she wondered how Lisa was doing. Impulsively, she found her cell phone in her bag and crept to the bathroom with it in hand.

Lisa was a night creature. Despite the late hour, if she was home, she'd be awake.

"Hello, and this better not be the damned police," Lisa answered.

Amy laughed. "It's me—Amy."

"Oh, thank the Lord," Lisa said, her Texas drawl bringing a smile to Amy's face. "I talked to so many cops this morning, I felt like I was trapped in a bad episode of _Homicide_. The worst part is, there wasn't a cute Bayliss in the bunch. How you doin'?"

"I'm okay," said Amy, but she said it with a sigh.

Lisa laughed. "Yeah, right—and I never do it on the first date. You thinkin' about Vanessa?"

"Aren't you?"

Lisa sighed. "Yeah, I am. That was a terrible thing, what happened to her. I cried and cried until I was sick, and I cancelled all my dates for tonight. I'm gonna sleep with my gun under my pillow from now on, for sure. You somewhere safe?"

"Yes," Amy said, playing with the phone cord. "I'm with an FBI agent."

"Is that right?" Lisa said with interest. "Is he good lookin'?"

"It's a she," Amy said, smiling despite herself. "A woman named Scully."

"Awww, that takes all the fun out of it. I had a nice time for about ten seconds there, picturin' you bein' guarded by some nice big strappin' Elliot Ness type."

Lisa sounded so good, so friendly and fun and easy to talk to, that Amy felt tears spring to her eyes. "I miss Michael," she said in a sudden swell of emotion. "I'm scared and I know he's worried about me and I miss him."

Lisa made a soothing sound. "'Course you do, honey. How long are you goin' to be there with that FBI agent?"

"I don't know. Until it's safe, I guess." Amy sniffled. "Until they catch whoever's been stalking me."

"You couldn't just maybe see Michael for a little while?" Lisa said in a coaxing voice. "What would be the harm in that? A gal's gotta have a little fun."

"The FBI agents don't think it would be a good idea."

"There you are again, being Miss Serious." Lisa sighed. "All I can say is, I'm glad it's you and not me. I mean that in the nicest way, of course, but I'd go stir crazy for sure if I was in your shoes."

Amy nodded glumly. She knew exactly what Lisa meant.

Stir crazy was her new middle name.

"Hey babe," Lisa said. "My doorbell just rang. Greg said he'd come over after he closed the club down." Greg was Lisa's boyfriend, the owner of a dance club in Alexandria.

"Okay, Lisa, you have fun tonight."

"Be safe," Lisa said and hung up.

She stared at the phone and fought the overwhelming urge to call Michael.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scully slapped down some more cards for Solitaire and stifled a sigh. The day had dragged mercilessly. She supposed that deep down she should appreciate some time to relax and unwind, but the Sheraton wasn't the place to do it. If she'd been at home, that would have been one thing. She could have curled up on the couch with a blanket, a good book and a girlie movie like _Little Women_, but the sterile hotel environment reminded her of too many dull road trips in the past with Mulder.

And if she had to be stuck in a hotel room, why couldn't it be with Mulder? They could make good use of the firm mattresses and extra pillows, not to mention that heat lamp in the bathroom.

A fine flush spread across her face as she remembered her boldness of the night before. She'd have to remember that all it took for her to turn into a hellcat was three glasses of red wine and a tiny bit of jealous insecurity. It had all been worth it to hear Mulder make those delicious noises.

She glanced over at Amy, sitting at the table and intently making notes on a legal pad, with a book propped on her lap.

"What exactly are you doing?" Scully asked.

Amy looked up and smiled. "I'm doing some research for my thesis."

"Your thesis?"

"Yes. I'm getting my master's degree from Georgetown. Art History. I've finished my coursework, but I've been dragging my heels on the thesis, and my advisor is starting to make some impatient noises. As long as I'm stuck here, I might as well actually get some work done, right?"

Scully took a moment to puzzle out the conundrum of a hooker/graduate student. Sometimes the world had a way of reminding her that when she saw it in black and white, she failed to catch all the gray shades in between.

An odd look must have passed on her face, for Amy said, "Not all professional girls are brain-dead. I know one gal in law school and my internist is actually an alumna of Tiger Lilies. It's a great way to make money and avoid those pesky student loans."

"What is your thesis about?"

Amy grinned. "It's tentatively titled _Myth and Modality in the Representation of Prostitution in Nineteenth Century Art_."

Scully couldn't help cracking, "Write what you know, huh?"

"Something like that," Amy chuckled. She set her book down and stood up. "Time for a trip to the bathroom."

Scully smiled and slapped down some more cards.

A minute later, Amy poked her head out the bathroom door. "Hey, Scully, may I ask a favor?"

"What's that?"

"Do you have any tampons?" Amy looked faintly embarrassed, which amused Scully a little. A prostitute sheepish about asking for a tampon, indeed.

"Sorry," Scully said. "It's not the right time for me. I didn't pack any."

"Oh crap. I guess I'll have to go down to that little shop in the lobby..."

Scully rose. "I'll go. It's safer if you stay in the room." She grabbed her purse and the key card off the bureau.

"Thanks so much. I hate to make you do my errands for me."

"It's fine. Just don't open the door for anyone, not even Mulder. No one goes in or out that door, okay?"

Amy nodded. "Of course. I'll be a little angel. And I brought my gun."

Ten minutes later Scully returned with the box of Tampax, four chocolate bars and the trashiest magazines she could find in the store. She keyed herself in the room.

The room was empty. So was the bathroom.

Amy's books, clothes and overnight bag were gone. There was no sign anyone but Scully herself had ever occupied the room.

She stopped, two paces inside the room, and bit down on the curse that was on her lips.

And then she spotted the note on the bed.

  
_Scully,_

I'm so sorry to just take off like this. You and Mulder have been so good to me in this difficult time, but I can't spend the rest of my life hiding out in a hotel, and neither can you. I've got to just try to live my life, and hope that the police find that man.

I am aware that I've caused some difficulties for you and Mulder, and I regret it. I wish you both the best of love and happiness together in the future.

Here's some money to cover the hotel bill.

Again, I apologize, and thank you for all you've done.

Amy

  
Underneath the note were two $100 bills.

Scully shook her head in wonder and outrage.

Picking up her cell phone, she dialed Mulder. "The chicken has flown the coop," she said, foregoing a greeting.

"What?" he said.

"Amy took off. She got me out of the room under the pretext of an errand and left the hotel. Apparently she was tired of my company." She tapped her forehead in a gesture of annoyance.

"She got you out of the room? How did she do that?"

She grimaced. "You don't want to know. I can't believe I was hoodwinked like that."

Mulder sharply exhaled. "Well, she wasn't our prisoner. If she doesn't want our protection, there's not a whole lot we can do."

"I know," she said, "but I worry about her safety."

"She's an adult, Scully, and an intelligent one at that. We'll just have to forget about her."

It was hard for her to believe Mulder could be so cavalier about Amy. And it was even harder for her to believe that she was so worried about the call girl. Life was getting curiouser and curiouser all the time.

"What do we do now, Mulder?"

The line was silent for a moment and then he spoke. "You check out of the hotel and then I pick you up."

"Why, do we have a lead?"

He laughed. "No, Scully, this case, or whatever it was, is over for us. We're going out for dinner."

She sat down on the bed and let out all her breath.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Nope," she sighed. "Only Italian food will cure what ails me."

Scully punched the End button on her phone and collapsed in a heap on the bed. She was feeling every unpleasant emotion she could name: guilt, anger, chagrin and embarrassment. It was still difficult to believe she'd been so easily taken in by Amy's story.

Finally, she got off the bed and began to pack her overnight bag, all the while muttering about ingrates.

The shrill ring of her cell phone startled her and she dropped the bottle of shampoo she was holding, right on her toe. She stifled an ugly word and grabbed the phone. "Yeah," she said sharply.

"Dana, did I call at a bad time?"

Oh God, it was John McMillan. She softened her voice considerably. "Hi, John. No, everything's fine, I just bumped into something when the phone rang."

He chuckled. "Sorry I didn't call last night, but it was crazy down here. There were two drive-bys, a park stabbing, a lover's quarrel gone sour and a body fished out of the Potomac. In other words, a typical weekend here in the city."

"That's okay. Did you find out anything useful or interesting from Maitland's autopsy?"

John's sigh into the phone gave her the answer before he even spoke. "Nope, nothing terribly useful. Despite the defensive wounds, there was no skin or hair under her nails, and no fibers on her skin. The cut to the neck caused the massive blood loss that led to death."

Scully gave a twin sigh to McMillan's. "Any sexual trauma?"

"Yeah, that's the only place where we have any useful evidence. We found semen in her rectum, and enough tearing and bleeding to indicate it wasn't consensual. The semen is Type O, and he's a secretor."

"So are the majority of men in Washington D.C."

"Too true, Dr. Scully, but at least we have a sample now, in case a suspect is found. DNA testing is a beautiful thing."

His tone sounded as flirtatious as it had the day before, and she wondered if he was extraordinarily persistent, or if that was how he always dealt with women. The funny part was that it was starting to cheer her up.

"I can't even remember what life was like before we used it in forensic medicine." She smiled.

"Ah, the good old days," John said, still chuckling. But his voice turned businesslike again. "One more thing for you—Maitland's tox screen came back positive for cocaine and heroin."

"Speedballs?"

"You know what they say, 'Live fast, die young and leave a good-looking corpse.'"

"That's a terrible joke," she said, rolling her eyes.

"You know pathology humor."

Ah yes, she could remember the disgusting practical jokes she and her colleagues had played on each other during her residency. Vividly, she could still recall the middle finger she'd found on her pillow in the on-call room.

"Too true, John." Scully sat up and checked her watch. Mulder would be at the hotel in ten minutes and she still had to check out. "Hey, I don't mean to be rude, but I have to run."

There was a long silence and she suddenly feared he'd try to ask her out again. Instead, he merely said, "That's cool. I know that girls like you have big plans on Saturday nights."

She felt the heat rising in her face. "Thanks so much for the information. That was very generous of you."

After a few more pleasantries, she hung up, relieved he hadn't made any kind of move again. Relieved and somehow disappointed at the same time. The sad thing was that John McMillan was her ideal man, the kind of guy she'd dreamed about five or six years ago.

But sometimes the person you're meant to be with isn't your ideal, she thought.

As she gathered up the rest of her things, she said, to no one in particular, "Mulder, you'd better be worth it."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy lifted her suitcase into the car, and then slammed the trunk closed. She ran around to the passenger side, and swung open the car door.

"Oh my God, thanks," she said with a grin, as she settled quickly in the passenger seat. "You wouldn't believe how stir crazy I was going in this place. I knew I could count on you."

"No problem," said the man behind the wheel, starting the engine. "You have good timing. I didn't even have to wait long."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They had dinner at Trattoria Ottavio—veal Marsala for him, pasta puttanesca for her. They ordered a bottle of Barolo, and finished it between them. Dinner conversation meandered from topic to topic: the snorkeling they'd done on their vacation in Cozumel, global warming, the demise of drive-ins. Finally they got into a spirited discussion of martial arts movies, Mulder defending the entire genre and Scully expressing incredulity that anyone could compare Jackie Chan to Cary Grant.

"Well, at least admit that Steven Seagal is wooden," she said.

"Not wooden—just the laconic loner fighting overwhelming odds, like Gary Cooper in High Noon."

"Now Steven Seagal is Gary Cooper?" She shook her head indisbelief. "Whatever planet you're living on, Mulder, I'd like to live there too. I'd be Rita Hayworth."

In his car on the drive to his apartment, Scully kicked off her heels. She tilted her head back against the seat, sighing with pleasure at the freedom of bare feet. It was a totally relaxed sound, he thought, something he'd missed since the night he'd told her about Amy.

It was still early, and so when they got to his apartment, they turned on the television. _Witnes_ was on, and the prospect of Harrison Ford in Amish clothing enticed Scully to stay.

"Harrison Ford," said Mulder, sitting down beside her and putting his feet up on the coffee table, "is the Western Jet Li."

She ignored him.

They watched the movie together in companionable silence. "I could do that," Mulder said during the barn raising scene, as Ford's character proved his prowess with a hammer.

Scully snorted. "Yeah, you'd really fit in with the Amish."

He turned his head and regarded her quizzically. "Do I detect a hint of scorn there, Scully?"

"Mulder, they don't have cell phones. Or television. I'd give you about forty-eight hours, and then you'd be up in the top of the closest bell tower, stark raving mad and picking off civilians with a high-powered rifle."

"They don't have high-powered rifles either," he reminded her. "I'd have to use a slingshot, or maybe throw an ax or something."

She started to chuckle. "I know that's supposed to be a joke, Mulder, but somehow I can see you doing it."

They were sitting side by side, and he had his arm around her shoulder. As the credits rolled he began to rub his hand in slow circles on her arm. She looked across at him, and gave him a half-smile.

He leaned over and kissed her softly. Scully turned toward him and her arms circled his neck; they kissed for what seemed like forever. His tongue slid smoothly in and out of her mouth. She caressed the back of his neck, sending little shivers down his spine. He moved lower and kissed her throat, and the hollow at the base of it.

She began to rub her hand over his chest slowly, and then her hand dropped to the button of his jeans. They kissed as he caressed her breasts outside her clothes, like some teenager making out in the backseat of a car. In fact, he felt rather like a teenager, kissing her furtively on the couch in front of the television. He let his hand slip down her waist to her legs, and softly stroked the side of her thigh. She did the same to him, her hand sweeping from the outside to the inside of his leg to tease gently against his balls.

He tipped her back into a lying position, half-covering her with his body. Both of them were still completely dressed. He was surprisingly turned on—he had flashbacks to being seventeen, and steaming up the car windows because the girl in the front seat with him had worked him into a state of trembling excitement. If he listened hard enough, he thought he might even be able to hear the car radio playing "Magnet and Steel": _With you I'm not shy, to show the way I feel..._

Her palm rubbed his erection through his jeans. He slipped his hand under her silk shell, and stroked her breast outside her bra. Scully assisted him by reaching around and unhooking the clasp—more shades of teenage years. He pushed her bra up and kissed her breasts through the silk of her blouse, sucking lightly on her nipples.

"Let's go in the bedroom," she said breathlessly.

"Un-unh," he said, looking up and grinning at her. "I want to make out on the couch."

She laughed but did not offer any argument. Instead she went to work unbuttoning his jeans.

He unfastened her pants, too, and slid his hand past the waistband of her underwear. She was wet, and felt hot and slick against his fingers. Scully lifted her hips a little, and he pushed her pants and underwear just far enough off her pelvis to give his hand some room to work.

Her cool fingers slipped inside the fly of his boxers, and freed his erection. She wrapped her hand around his cock and stroked firmly up and down.

"Oh, Scully," he moaned against her mouth.

There was something wonderfully paradoxical about this—the fact that they were still fully clothed lent what they were doing an air of both innocence and misbehavior. Here they were, two responsible adults in their thirties, and they were giving each other hand jobs on the couch like two eager high school kids.

It made sense, though. This was how they'd begun, one winter night a few months ago.

Scully seemed to be getting a kick out of it, too, because she didn't wiggle closer or pull him atop her. Instead she was doing a surprisingly good job of pumping her hand up and down his cock in an even rhythm, rubbing her palm strongly against the underside, reducing him to the same mindless incoherence in which he'd always found himself as a teenager.

He, for his part, was doing his best to give as good as he got. His fingers, slick with her arousal, worked in determined circles on her clit. From the happy little whimpering sounds she was making in the back of her throat, he suspected he wasn't doing half bad.

Finally her rhythm on his cock faltered slightly, and her muscles tensed in the way that told him she was on the verge of coming. He bent lower and took her nipple in his mouth again, licking at it through the silk of her clothing. She shivered and made a soft cry, arching against him. Drawing back to see her face, he slid two fingers inside her, and felt her pulsing around him.

When she opened her eyes again, she smiled rather bashfully at him. They kissed, long and slow. In the middle of the kiss he felt her hand begin its skillful work on his cock again. He chuckled, and when they both came up for air, he was lazy enough just to lie back and enjoy what she was doing.

It didn't take long before he was breathing hard. "Stop," he said suddenly, and laid his hand on her wrist. Instead she kept going for a stroke or two, then swooped down, her hand still moving, and took him in her mouth. He closed his eyes and groaned loudly, pumping into her again and again, seeing stars as he came.

When at last she pulled away, they both sighed contentedly. She straightened her clothes, tugging her pants back up on her hips, and he did his best to tuck himself inside his jeans again.

She stretched out beside him with her head on his shoulder.

They both sighed a second time. It felt comfortable, lying with her like this on his couch. Scully's smell lulled his senses, that combination of soap and chamomile shampoo and Paris perfume. She was soft and warm against him. He was sleepy, too; he didn't remember feeling quite so sleepy afterward when he'd been a teen-ager. He was getting old, he thought drowsily, his eyes starting to close...

"Mulder?" Scully's voice was soft and tentative. "Mulder, I'd like to ask you something."

This couldn't be good, he thought, the relaxation leaving him in an instant. Women never warned a man that they were about to ask him something unless the question was one he wasn't going to want to answer. "You would?

She sighed. "You said going to Amy was like a compulsion..."

He drew a deep breath. "Yes," he said, wondering with a sinking feeling why he'd ever thought this was all behind them.

"And you said you kept seeing her even after I came back..."

He nodded mutely.

She lifted her head from his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "So what changed? Why did you stop?"

He drew her tighter against him. Why had he stopped?

He could still remember that last time with Amy. Scully had been so sick. He'd spent the early part of the evening in the hospital with her, pretending he couldn't see the wasted way her skin stretched over her bones or the dark circles under her eyes. He'd thought going to see Amy would make him feel better. Instead as she'd touched him he'd thought only of Scully—the real Scully, the sick Scully, the Scully who was weak from cancer and from chemo. When he'd come, surging into Amy, he'd called Scully's name.

He'd been embarrassed. Amy wasn't supposed to hear Scully's name. It made him seem weak; worse, it tainted Scully somehow. For a second, the world of Amy and the world of Scully had merged in a way he'd never intended.

For the first time, the let-down—that awful feeling of guilt and shame—h it him even before he left the hotel room. Riding the elevator down, he'd wished more than anything that he could take the last hour back. When he'd gotten in his car, he'd sat behind the wheel in the dim, low-ceilinged parking garage, and fought for long minutes not to cry.

He failed miserably.

"I don't know why I stopped," he said finally, his voice a little rough. "When I started it felt like something I needed. I pretended you were alive, Scully, and that made me feel alive again. The sex was exciting. Even if it was based on a fantasy—a lie—it still felt good enough that I was able to ignore the rest, that I was paying Amy and that she was essentially a stranger. In fact, in some twisted way, I actually liked that she was a stranger. I couldn't fuck up a stranger's life. A stranger wasn't going to judge me. That alone gave me a feeling of relief that, at that time, I don't think any other kind of sex would have given me."

Scully slipped her hand into his.

"But then," Mulder continued, "you came back, and time passed, and you got sick. And I started to realize how much you meant to me. I started to recognize how much I needed to be with you, and how different it was going to be if you" —he choked on the words, but kept going— "if you died. Amy wasn't going to make that better. Nothing was going to make that better."

She squeezed his fingers. "I'm okay now, Mulder."

"I know, but at that time... Every time I saw you, I tried to store the memory up—this is what Scully was like when I cracked a joke, this is what Scully was like when she was exasperated with me, this is how Scully looked sitting on the bed. That's when it hit me, how important you were to me."

She pressed his hand tightly in both of hers.

"Anyway," he said after a little while, "I guess I'd known it all along, but had just never thought about it consciously. When I did think about it, the guilt and the emptiness of seeing Amy started to outweigh the thrill. In fact, the thrill wasn't so thrilling any more. I didn't want to be with just anyone. I wanted to be with you."

Scully didn't say anything, but she reached up and brushed the hair back off his temple. He turned his head and kissed her brow.

A long silence stretched between them. Neither felt like breaking it.

Finally Scully said, "You're not a bad person, Mulder. You're not even a weak person. You've just had a few weak moments in your life."

He pulled her close. "Thanks, Scully," he said into her hair. "I think I needed to hear that."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning, Scully woke and found the other side of the bed empty.

She got out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She found Mulder in the kitchen, a towel wrapped around his hips, making coffee. He turned around and smiled at her.

Scully yawned and stretched, sitting on the edge of the kitchen table. "Do I take this early morning liveliness to mean that you're planning to make breakfast?"

He grinned. "Only if you're a very, very good girl."

She leaned back on her elbows, well aware of the way it made her breasts push against the thin material of the t-shirt she'd worn to bed. "What, precisely, does being good entail?"

He stepped up to the table and flashed her a wolfish look that reassured her immensely. While she appreciated the fact that he was feeling guilty and remorseful about Amy, she was getting a bit tired of the hangdog look he'd been wearing ever since. She wanted her old Mulder back—sarcastic, silly, sexy, horny Mulder.

Mulder grabbed one of her thighs in each hand and tugged her so she was sitting near the edge of the table.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm going to have some breakfast," he said, chuckling.

She smiled in anticipation. Come to think of it, the kitchen table was one of the few pieces of furniture they hadn't defiled in their short time together as a couple.

Mulder leaned down to kiss her and she nearly smiled against his lips, happy to feel him touching her and making love with her for nothing more than just for the hell of it, for fun. It had been a while since they'd had one of those times together. Since Amy, to be perfectly precise. She reached with her hand and pulled off his towel.

"What do you want?" he whispered in her ear. "Whatever you want this morning, I'll do it for you." She shivered at his words, and the way he started running his tongue along her earlobe.

"I want—" she whispered and Mulder looked at her in anticipation. "I want blueberry pancakes and a half grapefruit."

He groaned in annoyance, and mock-swatted her cheek. "Just for that, you don't get to pick anymore." His fingers slid down her body and found her panties, and he pulled them off without preamble.

"I think what you're doing will be just fine," she gasped as he spread her legs apart and began teasing and circling with his fingers in the way he knew drove her insane.

"You like that?" he said and pushed up her t-shirt to suck at her nipples with an eager mouth.

She nodded and gave a small yowl of pleasure in response.

Mulder smiled. "Good, because I love to make you feel good, Scully. Nothing gets me as hot as watching your face when you're hungry for it. The way your cheeks get pink and your lower lip pouts." He moved still closer and she felt his erection brush against her leg.

"You know what gets me hot, Mulder?" she whispered.

He leaned closer and she took a deep breath of his sleepy morning smell. "Tell me," he growled.

"When you fuck me, really hard."

Mulder tipped his head back, moaning at that, and she smirked in triumph. She wasn't one to talk dirty to him a lot, since it wasn't really in her nature to do so, but the right words, used judiciously from time to time, could have a powerful effect indeed.

His response was the correct one, though, and that was to pull her right to the very edge of the table and wrap her legs around his waist. One quick thrust later and he was buried to the hilt in her, still standing. She brought her arms around his neck and hung on as best she could, as he moved in and out of her in long, quick slides that made her bite her lower lip and cry out with each stroke.

"So good," he hissed in her ear. "No one, Scully, no one feels like you do."

And no one could possibly feel like Mulder making love to her, she thought. She loved watching his face when they had sex in the daylight, especially the dazed and blissful look in his eyes as he neared his orgasm.

Scully reached between their straining bodies and found her swollen clit with her middle finger. Mulder's eyes followed her hand and he licked his lower lip. "I love watching you do that," he said.

She would have thought up a snappy comeback for that one, but it was impossible as her climax started approaching and she was caught in its pull, bucking against Mulder as it hit her.

He began to really lose it, she happily noted through the post-orgasmic haze, as he shut his eyes and softly swore under his breath.

"Come on," she said breathlessly, "you can let go now."

And presto, he came with a groan of the agony of relief. She felt like a goddess, with her ability to make him come with her words. I am woman, hear me roar, she thought and started to laugh.

As soon as he stopped panting, Mulder said, "What's so funny?"

Her smile was small and secretive. "Nothing you'd find amusing."

He kissed her with the soft and giving lips of a man exhausted by his exertions. "You're something else, Dana Scully."

With her foot, she playfully poked at his bare ass. "I know," she said.

They separated and he helped her down off the table.

"So," Scully said, "You were saying something about breakfast?"

Mulder rolled his eyes. "I can never satisfy you, can I?"

"Nope."

And in the distance she heard the ringing of a cell phone, most likely in the living room.

"Yours or mine?" he asked.

"I think it's yours."

He padded off to the other room and she heard the low hum of conversation.

A minute later he returned and set the phone down on the kitchen counter. "Breakfast is going to have to wait, Scully."

"How come?"

"Detective Watters called. A body was found, in Richard Haskell's car."

Her hand rose to cover her open mouth. "Oh God, it's not Amy, is it?"

Mulder shrugged. "An identification hasn't been made, but a credit card receipt in Amy's name was found in the coat pocket of the victim."

End Part 5 of 7.


	6. Chapter 6

After setting a land-speed record for showering, they headed off to the crime scene, wet heads and all. "We'll catch colds," Mulder muttered, gulping coffee with one hand, and switching on the ignition with the other.

Scully slammed her door shut. "Colds don't come from wet hair in chilly weather, Mulder. They're caused by viruses," she said, stating the obvious.

They drove through the gray morning in tense silence. The whole way, Mulder was berating himself for not finding the killer before it was too late for Amy.

Her reappearance had posed problems for Scully and him, but he still shuddered at the thought of her dying at the hands of a madman, alone and terrified.

It wasn't a long drive. The body had been found in the parking lot of Grace Episcopal Church, only eight blocks from Scully's apartment, in another quiet, residential end of Georgetown.

The tableau was an eerie repeat of Friday morning—a waiting ambulance, several police cars and a gathering of trench coats. Mulder parked the car on the far end of the lot and they walked over to the crime scene.

Detective Watters was standing by a teal Lexus SUV, smoking a cigarette and talking to another man, clearly another homicide detective.

"Thanks for calling me," Mulder said.

Watters nodded. "I thought you'd be interested in this, since the MO is the same."

"Have you identified the body?" Scully asked. He was almost surprised to note the tone of anxiety in her voice.

The other detective nodded and looked down at the clipboard in his hands. "Name is Lisa Horton."

Mulder felt the air hiss out of lungs.

"I recognized her," Watters said, stubbing out his smoke with his wing-tip. "I interviewed her on Friday morning about the Maitland murder. She's a call girl friend of Amy Callahan's."

Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder spotted the familiar figure of Richard Haskell. He was intently talking to a tall woman with blonde hair in a French twist. Mulder jerked his thumb at the couple. "What's the story with Haskell?"

"He reported the car stolen late last night. He and his wife drove down to Richmond in his wife's car on Friday afternoon for a family party and came back to find the car stolen. Guy's got an air-tight alibi; he was seen by approximately seventy-five relatives on Friday and Saturday."

Watters' cell phone rang, and he turned his back slightly to engage in a brisk conversation. Mulder realized Scully was no longer standing by his side. A quick glance found her on the other end of the Lexus, peering through the back windows with a man by her side. A tall young man with light brown hair and glasses, just Scully's type. And standing much closer to her than professional etiquette would advise.

Mulder grimaced at his thoughts. He was jealous—now wasn't that rich, given the circumstances?

He walked over and Scully looked up. "This is horrible," she said.

"What do we have?"

"Maybe you'd better ask John." She gestured toward the man standing at her side. "John McMillan, I'd like you to meet my partner, Fox Mulder. John was the coroner on the Maitland case, and so he was called out on this one, too."

McMillan shook hands with him and nodded. "Without an autopsy, I'd say we've got the same perp here. It looks like another clean cut to the neck and anal rape. But he's done more this time..."

Mulder tilted his head. "More?"

"Yeah," the coroner said. "He cut the word 'whore' into her thigh. And looking at the rigor mortis, it looks like she was killed sometime on Friday or early Saturday morning, not last night."

Steeling himself, Mulder looked in the window and saw a slender young woman, nude and lying in the nest of a reddish fur coat, sprawled in the back of the car and rigid with death. More unseeing eyes, he thought, more garish display of killing. The gray interior of the car looked like an abattoir, splashed with baroque red blood.

"That's consistent," Mulder said. "He's trying to get his message across. The killer wants to rid the world of immorality and he believes he needs to label his victims."

Scully shook her head, as if in disbelief. "Even after all this time in law enforcement, I just cannot understand that state of mind."

Mulder grimaced. "Unfortunately, after all this time, I can."

Watters came stalking across the asphalt, hitching his baggy pants as he went. "Hey Mulder, we've been trying to reach Amy Callahan. You got any idea where she is?"

"We had her in a hotel room to protect her and she took off," Scully said. "I think she went to New York to be with her boyfriend."

"You got a name?"

"Michael Corey," Mulder said. "But I don't have a phone number."

The pudgy detective made a face. "Damn stupid hookers. Why would she think she's safe in another city? I'll try to get his number up there and talk to her. If this dude is targeting her friends, she's not safe anywhere."

Two attendants rolled a stretcher over to the car. The coroner unhatched the back and leaned inside to attach bags to the body's hands to preserve any possible skin or hair samples. "Hey Dana," McMillan called out, twisting his head around. "There's something reddish under her fingernails."

Her eyebrows rose. "Blood, you think?"

"Possibly. It certainly wouldn't hurt to get more DNA samples to match with the ones we got off Vanessa Maitland."

Scully moved closer to the coroner and they began to talk rapidly in medical gibberish that Mulder couldn't possibly follow. Standing around the corner of the car, Mulder felt incredibly ineffectual. It was all very well and good to be able to profile, but it wasn't exactly helping much, now was it?

He wished he hadn't left his coffee in the car as he shut his eyes and tried to fit the jagged pieces of the puzzle together. Something nagged at him, but it wasn't coming to him.

Think of the obvious, Mulder.

The obvious refused to come.

He started at the light touch of Scully's hand on his arm. "I'm going to go downtown with John for the autopsy."

Mulder nodded.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm frustrated," he said.

Lisa Horton's body was lifted from the back of the car and loaded on a stretcher, covered in a blanket.

"I can understand that," Scully said. "We don't have anything solid right now."

"Maybe the autopsy will shed some light."

She smiled, her eyes almost gray in the dull morning light. "Let's hope so, for Amy's sake. And Vanessa and Lisa."

For a moment, she looked like she was about to kiss him, but shook her head as if remembering where she was.

"Go on," he said, pushing her away. "Go perform your scalpel magic."

"Call me if anything comes up," she said and walked off to John's car, where he was already behind the wheel.

Detective Watters looked over at him. "Hey Mulder, we're gonna canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone saw anything. Grunt work, but you wanna pitch in?"

Mulder nodded. Why the hell not? It wasn't as if his profiling was working miracles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"On the run from the FBI." Amy mused as she finished unpacking her suitcase. "I feel like we're Bonnie and Clyde."

He stepped up to her, and wrapped his arms around her waist. "I'm just glad you're here with me."

"Me, too," she said. She tipped her head back and smiled up at him.

Yesterday she'd met him outside the Sheraton, where he'd had a rental car waiting. They'd sped off to the airport, grinning and with their hearts pounding, as if they really were two fugitives on the run. On the shuttle from DC, they'd held hands while she'd told him about Vanessa and the hotel room and how much she had missed him. When they'd gotten back to his apartment, they'd fallen immediately into bed and made love wordlessly in the dark for what seemed like hours. She'd slept like a baby beside him all night.

Michael cupped her cheek in his palm. "I'm not letting you out of my sight again," he said. "Until you called me I was going crazy, wondering where you were and whether you were okay or not."

"I'm okay now," she said. "No one's going to find me here."

He kissed her, his lips soft on hers.

She was so glad to be back with him. It was where she should have come in the first place, she thought. Mulder and Scully meant well, but she had felt so cooped up in that hotel room, she might as well have been in prison. With Michael, she had both safety and freedom.

Michael let her go, and walked over to the foot of the bed. "That man I met..." he began hesitantly, reaching out a finger and tracing the pattern on the comforter. "That FBI Agent..."

"Mulder?"

"Yes, Mulder," he said without looking at her. "He was one of your clients, wasn't he?"

There was something odd in Michael's tone, Amy thought. Jealousy? Insecurity? That wasn't like Michael.

"He was," she said calmly, "but that was a couple of years ago."

"I thought you said the men you saw were mostly older—married businessman and middle-aged politicians."

She noticed the tense set of his shoulders. She walked over and set a hand on his arm. "You're not going to get all weird on me, are you? It doesn't matter to me what they look like. You know that."

"I'm not jealous," he said, still not looking at her. "I don't really care what they look like either. It's just...well, I'd hate to think you've been lying to me, on top of everything else..."

His voice was soft, but she drew back in shock. "Lying to you? I'm not a liar, Michael."

He turned to face her. "No, I know you're not. Except that your family thinks you're an art dealer, don't they?"

She felt stung by the sly insinuation in his words. "That's different. I don't want to hurt them."

"I see. You lie to them because you don't want to hurt them. Does that mean you do want to hurt me?"

She looked at the floor and said tightly, "Michael, don't be like this. You know the difference. They would never understand, and you do."

He was quiet for a minute, then he sighed. He reached out and took her hand in his. "I'm sorry, Amy. You're right. I do understand."

She breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't think she could face an argument with Michael just now, after all she'd been through in the last week—first Jess's death, then Vanessa's. She knew Michael was only human, and that everyone had insecure moments, but part of what attracted her to him was his open-minded acceptance of her work.

"We just need to take some time for ourselves, I think," Michael said, a little sadly. "We need to forget about Tiger Lilies and this stalker business for a little while, and let things get back to normal."

She nodded. "I'm not going back to Tiger Lilies, at least not any time soon. Not after what happened to Vanessa."

He smiled, a warm, genuine smile that touched his eyes. "I'm so glad to hear that, Amy. Judging from everything that's happened lately, it's just not safe."

"I know," she said. "I'll start asking around, and see if I can find an agency here in New York."

His smile vanished, replaced by a look of disbelief. "You mean you're going to work here?"

"Of course," she said. "We still need money for the gallery, don't we?"

"But what about the danger—"

"Please, Michael." She held up a hand. "Let's not talk about this now, okay? I'm just not up to it."

He frowned, and turned away. He was worried about her, she knew. But she simply couldn't handle arguing about it right now. After the awful week she'd just endured, she didn't have the emotional resources left to discuss it with him.

Besides, she knew Michael would come to realize that she was right about working here in New York. Cape Cod was a nice dream, but it was his dream, not hers. This way, they would be together, and she could keep saving.

He sighed, his shoulders slumping. "I'm going to my studio, Amy," he said in a defeated voice. "My show is coming up and I have a lot of work to do."

Her heart sank. It wasn't like Michael to avoid her. "Can I come with you?" she asked, the request tentative.

He stood still for a minute, then turned to her with a gleam in his eye. "You want to come to my studio with me?"

She was touched by his obvious eagerness to spend time with her. "Of course," she said. "It's been a while since I've seen you work. Besides, even if DC is a couple of hundred miles away, I still feel safer being with you."

"I think that's a really good idea," he said. A smile spread slowly over his features. "I would love for you to come to my studio. In fact, I have a few surprises I'd like to show you."

She took his hand. "Let's both go, then," she said, and kissed his cheek. "You know how I love surprises."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Halfway to the morgue, the drizzle that had been plaguing the city started up again and John turned on the windshield wipers. This is the most pathetic excuse for an April in the history of Aprils, Scully thought, sipping at the coffee she and John had stopped for on the way.

"So," John said, turning left, "you and your partner, huh?"

Scully's back stiffened against the car seat. While she and Mulder hadn't been keeping their new relationship a secret, they hadn't exactly been advertising it, either. "What about Mulder and me?" she said in a guarded tone.

He turned to her and smiled, that sunny, amused smile that had attracted her to him in the first place. "Just that he's the one you're seeing. Is it tough, spending all that time with him as your partner and then being involved?"

"Why do you think we're personally involved?" she asked.

John switched the radio from NPR to a jazz station. "Dana, I'm not blind. You both show up at the crime scene with matching sets of wet hair. Hmmm, what would _you_ think?"

"I'd probably think what you're thinking," Scully said, her mouth twitching in the beginnings of a smile.

"Well, it's what I get for not acting on my first impulse, which was to ask you out that day we met last year. I kept steeling myself to go over to you at the reception and just do it, but I chickened out. My divorce had just become final and I was feeling out of practice."

She took another sip of the strong coffee and looked at the moving cityscape through the rain-misted windows. "John," she said in a gentle voice. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I probably would have said no a year ago, too."

He pretended to bang his fist on the steering wheel. "So, is it my personality, or were you guys already involved then?"

"Neither." She shook her head. "But let's just say that I had already made the commitment all the same."

It was true. Even if she hadn't been able to admit it to herself at the time, she'd loved Mulder then.

"Well, I'm just relieved to hear it's not me," John chuckled. "And Dana, I am happy for you. It's hard to find someone these days." He pulled into the parking lot adjoining the building.

She nodded her head. It was hard, but she'd been lucky.

Mulder was an imperfect being, but then again, so was she. She was going to have to learn to let go of her idea of the perfect relationship, the ideal man, because there was no such thing.

Two hours later Scully hustled out of the autopsy bay. She'd stripped off her latex gloves, but was still wearing her blood-daubed surgical gown as she marched down the hall to the locker room, her heart beating madly.

As she unlocked the locker door with shaking hands, she could hear her cell phone echoing in the metal walls.

She grabbed the phone. "Scully," she said breathlessly.

"I've been trying to reach you," Mulder said, in an equally out of breath voice. "I was hoping you'd finish up soon, because we had a major break here, canvassing the neighborhood. We found—"

Scully interrupted him. "We found something, too. Remember how Lisa Horton had something reddish under her nails? We thought it might be blood, but it's not. It's an oil-based paint, the kind used by artists. Are you following me?"

Judging by his sharp inhale, he was. "That just confirms what we found out. An elderly woman who lives across the street from Grace Church was taking her dog out at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday and she saw a young man park the Lexus in the church parking lot. He walked out of the lot and right in front of her house. She described him as in his late twenties, dark hair, handsome, and with a stud in his nose."

She nearly dropped her phone. "Does Michael Corey have a nose piercing?" She'd never met the man, but Mulder had.

"Exactly. And I got busy and woke Frohike up. He found airline records of Michael's trips to DC, all jibing with the murders. And he found a record of Amy and Michael taking the 7:00 pm shuttle to New York last night."

"Oh shit," she breathed. "That is not good news."

"Watters has contacted NYPD and they're getting a search warrant for his apartment."

Don't let it be too late, she silently prayed. Don't let the monster strike again.

Mulder interrupted her thoughts. "Scully, I think we should go up to New York."

"There's not much we can do up there, Mulder," she said. "It's really more for the NYPD to handle."

"I know, but I'd feel better if we were there, too."

"You're probably right," she said. She and Mulder were alike in that way, hating to be out of the loop of the action. And she bore some of the responsibility for Amy being in harm's way, having let Amy slip out of her fingers with such a ridiculous ruse. "Book us a flight and I'll meet you at the airport."

"I'm on my way right now and I'll meet you at the United counter."

"I'll be there," she said, and turned off the phone.

Oh Amy, why did you go back to him, she frantically thought.

As quickly as she could, she changed and then charged out into the hallway. Halfway down to the exit, she spotted John, talking to another staff member.

She hated to ask him for a favor, she truly did, knowing how he was attracted to her, and how she'd had to turn him down. But desperation was desperation.

"John," she said, "is there any possible way you could give me a ride to the airport?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy finished reading the last page of Michael's copy of _The Village Voice_ and returned it to the neat stack of magazines beside the futon. "How's it coming?" she asked.

Michael glanced up from the canvas he was working on, an expression of complete absorption on his face. "What?"

She laughed. "Sorry, didn't mean to break your concentration. I just asked how the painting was coming."

"Really well," he said.

She got up, and came to stand behind him. They gazed together at the canvas. "Nice work," she said approvingly. "I love the way the light seems to flicker across the torso."

She liked it here in Michael's studio; it seemed so _Michael_. There were paintings all around, and the mirrors he used when working with a live model, and the smell of paint. Yet the overall impression wasn't merely that of an artist's workplace, but of impressive order and organization. Everything was arranged just so—the neat row of canvases, the art brushes in their box, the easel turned to the sunlight.

"So when are you going to show me my surprises?" she asked with a smile.

He put down his paintbrush, and wiped his hands on the towel beside his palette. "In a little while," he said, standing and turning to face her. "Right now I've earned a break, don't you think?"

She grinned as he took her in his arms. "Definitely."

He began unbuttoning her blouse as they kissed. She helped him, her hands competing with his for the buttons. When they broke the kiss, she reached around and unzipped her skirt. It fell to the floor and she stepped out of it. The rest of her clothes quickly followed.

She looked over her shoulder at him as she walked back to the futon. He was tugging off the rowing sweatshirt he was wearing.

"Michael!" she said. "What happened to you?"

Long red scratches marred his chest and upper arms. Some of them looked ragged and deep.

He glanced down at himself as he tossed his shirt on the floor. "I guess I must have scratched myself up, stretching canvases the other day."

He shed the rest of his clothes, and they lay down together on the futon. As they kissed and touched each other, Amy remembered the promise she had made to herself in the hotel room, that when the two of them were together again, she would make love to him, long and slow.

It was long and slow. And sweet. The sunlight spilled through the studio windows, bathing their skin in light as they made love. She moved atop him with a gradually building rhythm, enjoying every moment, drawing it out as much as she could. She stared into his eyes, feeling the connection with him that she never felt with her clients. He gazed back, his green eyes grave and unblinking.

"I love you," she whispered.

When it was over, when she had shuddered into orgasm above him and he had rolled her underneath him and finished in an intense burst of passion, they lay together, flushed and sweaty.

"There's something I want to show you now," he said quietly. "Your surprise."

She turned onto her side and watched as he reached for his jeans, pulled them on, and got up. He went to the drafting table between the windows and, reaching under it, retrieved a brown expanding file folder. He unwrapped the elastic closure, and took out a sheaf of papers.

"What are those?" she asked, sitting up as he walked with them back to her.

"Drawings of you." He sat down on the futon beside her, and passed her the first one. "Look. This is you, the night I first met you. Do you see how beautiful you are?"

She examined the drawing—a charcoal sketch of her, her hair a little longer than it was now, an expression of wistful happiness on her upturned face. She _was_ beautiful in it, she thought. Michael was an extraordinary artist and he had captured a charm and a vulnerability in his drawing that made sudden tears well up in her eyes.

"And now this one," he said, taking another drawing from the thick stack. "I drew this the night after I found out what you did for a living."

He passed it to her, and her breath caught in her throat.

It was drawing of her, her face contorted in an ugly mask, her hair whipping around her features like snakes. She was naked in the picture, sprawled obscenely with her legs spread wide.

And her throat was cut.

Her heart began beating wildly against her ribs. "Michael," she said, her mouth suddenly gone dry, "what is this?"

He looked down at the drawing she held in her shaking hand. "I tried to make you stop," he said. "I tried everything I could think of—reasoning with you, offering you a better way to live your life, trying to open your eyes to the evil of what you were doing..."

"No," she said in a whisper.

"This is one of you fucking some other man," he said dispassionately, handing her another drawing. "And here's another one just like that. I didn't draw their faces because their faces don't really matter, do they, Amy? You don't care who it is."

She heard herself moan.

"And this one, see how you're bleeding here? And this is another one of you with another man. And in this one, you're dying, choking on your own blood..."

Stunned, she did not look down at the drawings he kept pushing mercilessly into her hands.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They did not talk much until the airplane was off the ground. Mulder sat in the window seat, staring out at the diminishing landscape below, while Scully leafed distractedly through the in-flight magazine. They were both too preoccupied with their thoughts about Amy and the deaths they had already witnessed to feel up to talking.

Something else was preoccupying Mulder, too. He kept thinking of John McMillan, and the way Scully had smiled at the coroner as she'd stepped out of his car at the airport curb. He'd thought she was more or less past her resentment over Amy. Now he wondered just how much he'd screwed things up. Maybe she was already looking for someone else, if only subconsciously.

He checked his watch.

"The NYPD are working on it, Mulder," Scully said beside him.

He sighed. "I know. I just hope they're not too late."

"At least we should have some good evidence to convict. John was able to recover semen from both the previous victims."

Mulder winced, the suggestion that Amy might join the ranks of "previous victims" only compounded by Scully's casual use of McMillan's first name.

"In fact, John was the one who ID'd the paint under Lisa Horton's fingernails." Her expression turned pensive. "He's a nice guy"

Well, there was the perfect opening if ever there was one, Mulder thought. "So," he said, clearing his throat, "have you known him long?"

She tucked her magazine back in the seat pocket in front of her, and shook her head. "Not that long. We met about a year ago, at a conference. We talked a lot. I think he was a little lonely. His wife left him and his divorce had just become final."

Mulder frowned. The guy was good looking, a fellow pathologist, single, and Scully knew all about his personal life. Wonderful.

"He asked me out at the Maitland crime scene," she said.

Mulder wasn't quite sure how to respond to this. For one thing, it seemed like only half a sentence to him. "He asked me out at the Maitland crime scene" ought to end with something more, something like "but I said no." He waited, but she didn't elaborate.

"And?" he said finally.

"And what?"

"Scully," he said, suddenly feeling tired and depressed, "if you want to go out with him, don't let me stop you."

She sat in silence for a moment, apparently stunned by his words. At last she said, "Do you want me to go out with him?"

He laughed shortly, a sound that had nothing to do with amusement. "What do you think?"

"I have no idea, Mulder. Why would you say something like that?"

"I don't know," he said, his stomach twisting. "It just seemed like the right thing to say. You like him, don't you?"

"Of course I like him."

"Well, then...I wouldn't want to stand in your way."

He meant it to come out sounding noble and mature, and yet it sounded so petulant. Jealous. Insecure. He sat there, listening to the dull roar of the jet engines, wishing he could take back the words.

Finally he felt Scully's hand on his arm. "Mulder..."

He turned his head away and stared out the window. "What?" he said, hoping for reassurance, and hating himself for being so needy.

"Mulder, I like John, but I have no intention of going out with him. I love you. I'm with _you_ now."

"But he might be better for you," he argued, wondering even as he did so what awful impulse was making him say these things. Was he really trying to talk her into going out with another man?

Brilliant, he thought, wanting to kick himself. Tell Scully you've been with a prostitute one week, then push her into the arms of someone else the next. No wonder he had never excelled in the relationship arena.

But she seemed to understand that he didn't really want her to agree with him. "I'm with you now, and I have no intention of being with anyone else," she said, firmly. She gave his arm a quick squeeze before turning it loose.

He merely nodded. On the outside, his expression was restrained, but on the inside he felt a flood of relief.

When the plane landed, a uniformed officer met them at the gate. He led the way to a waiting squad car, a level of cooperation neither had expected, especially since they were working unofficially. Apparently the New York police appreciated a tip as concrete as the name and address of a wanted serial killer.

"Any news?" Mulder asked, once they were in the squad car and on their way out of the airport.

The policeman riding shotgun shook his head. "Last we heard they had a warrant and were searching the apartment, but the suspect wasn't there, and they hadn't found anything helpful."

"We know she's with him," Scully said. "We have to find them."

Mulder was on edge the whole way into Chelsea. He could sense that Scully was, too, from her tense posture and controlled breathing. They stared out the car windows at the city, counting the seconds.

Fortunately, it was a Sunday and traffic in Manhattan was at its lightest. They reached Michael Corey's Chelsea neighborhood in good time. Several police cars were parked in the street, their lights flashing.

They produced their badges for the policeman guarding the door to Michael's apartment, and went in. Inside, the search was already winding to a close. They found the detective in charge, a stocky man with a weary attitude.

"Nothing," he told them glumly. "He's not here. We'll station a unit on the street to watch for him, but for now we've come up empty handed."

"What about Amy Callahan, the woman he had with him?" Mulder asked.

"We found a suitcase in the bedroom with her name on the luggage tag, but all of the clothes had been put away in a nice orderly fashion. There's no sign of foul play."

"She's got to be with him," Mulder said. "If she's still alive, it's just a matter of time before he kills her."

Detective Rinaldi held up his hands in a helpless gesture. "What can I do? Look at this place. This guy is more organized than Martha Stewart. He didn't leave anything for us."

The apartment was tidy and uncluttered—eerily so, Mulder thought. In the kitchen, identical plastic containers of cereal, rice, beans, and pasta lined the shelves in a perfect row. The countertops were spotless and bare. In the living room, magazines were spread on the low coffee table in a fan, arranged alphabetically from left to right. Nothing was out of place.

"I thought this guy was an artist. This place looks more like a laboratory or a hospital or something," the detective said, looking around him with a frown.

"It's part of the profile," Mulder mumbled, with a growing sense of frustration. "He's someone who wants to impose order on the world."

Scully held out a hand, and pointed at a framed poster hanging on the wall over the couch. "What's that?"

Rinaldi glanced at it. "Poster for a gallery exhibit of some kind."

"No, I mean what's that address on the bottom?"

Mulder drew closer to the poster. The boldest caption displayed Michael's name, the gallery address, and the dates of the show. In the lower right corner, however, an address appeared in smaller type.

The detective peered over Mulder's shoulder. "Not a very swanky neighborhood," he remarked, taking in the Lower East Side address.

"An artist would have a studio," Mulder said, realization dawning. "That's Michael Corey's studio."

"He took her there," Scully breathed.

Mulder nodded grimly.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael pushed her down roughly onto her back, ripping the sheaf of drawings from her frozen hands. "Why'd you have to do it, Amy?" he said, looming over her. "Why'd you have to turn out so bad when I loved you so much?"

She tried to twist away, but he clamped a hand down on her throat, pinning her to the futon.

"I was waiting for you to change, Amy. I gave you chance after chance," he hissed, his eyes glittering feverishly. "But even when I inherited that money from my grandfather, you wanted to keep on working. It wasn't the money that really mattered, was it? You're a whore. You do it because you want to be fucked by anyone and everyone."

"No—"

He clapped his free hand over her mouth and pushed down savagely. "Don't talk. I don't want to hear the lies and the excuses. I loved you so much, Amy. It almost killed me when I learned what you were."

She stared up at him, her eyes stark with terror. Oh my God, she thought to herself, over and over. Oh my God. It's Michael. Michael's the one who's been stalking me. Michael killed Vanessa.

He gazed down at her with a flushed face. "I gave you so many chances—first patience, then trying to reason with you, then hoping to scare some sense into you with the photographs. But none of it worked, did it, Amy? You were a whore then, and you're a whore now. You didn't even wake up after what happened to Jess. You went running right back to your whore friends."

Oh God. Jess. She flashed on a sudden picture of Michael, brutally slashing her dog's throat. Jess had loved and trusted him. It would have been easy for Michael to let himself in with his key. Jess would have come running.

She squeezed her eyes shut in horror.

"You thought I was in New York then, didn't you, Amy?" Michael hissed above her. "You thought you could come trotting up whenever you liked, and I'd be waiting for you. I came at the bottom of your list of priorities. At the bottom of your list of men to fuck."

He took his left hand from her mouth, while his right dug brutally into her throat. She tried to scream but he shoved his palm down harder, cutting off her air.

"Well, I wasn't in New York," he said, as he stretched out his left hand and groped under the futon for something. "A cell phone is a very useful thing. All I had to do was stay one shuttle ahead of you, and you never even guessed about Jess. Or Vanessa. Or Lisa."

Lisa? Oh God, Michael must have killed Lisa too. A jolt of renewed terror shot through her and she clawed at his hand, battling for breath.

Michael showed no sign that he even noticed her struggles. "You never knew because you're a stupid whore," he said with a frightening calm, still searching blindly under the futon with his left hand. "You think you're so smart, don't you, Amy? 'I went to Northwestern, I'm going to open a gallery.' How much brain power does it take to fuck men for money?"

Finally he found whatever it was he had been groping for under the futon. With fear-wide eyes she watched as he drew out a long, white shape—something about six inches long, with a short silver hook on the end.

A razor, she thought in the same breathless instant as he unfolded the blade from the mother of pearl handle. A straight razor.

He laughed when he saw her eyes fixed on the gleaming blade. "The money wasn't the only thing I inherited from my grandfather."

This couldn't be happening, she thought in disjointed terror. This couldn't be real. Her terrified gaze followed the razor as he brought it closer and closer to her face.

He touched the sharpened edge to her cheek. She froze, afraid to move.

"So pretty on the outside," he said, and she gasped in pain as he sliced her cheek lightly with the razor. He moved the blade to the other side. "And so ugly on the inside." With a light flick, he sliced her face again.

She tried to stay absolutely motionless, but her cheeks stung, and terrified sobs shook her body. She felt something trickle down the side of her face, inching toward her ear, and wondered if it was a tear or a rivulet of blood. It was hard to think at all. She was terrified, and she was growing dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

He slashed her arm deeply with the razor, then leaned down so that his lips were barely inches from her ear. "I'm going to kill you," he whispered, "and then I'm going to fuck you like the dirty whore you are."

She shook with wordless sobs.

He straightened, a look of relish giving his handsome face an almost demonic glow. "Remember, you made me do this."

She closed her eyes as he raised his arm to strike.

End Part 6 of 7.


	7. Chapter 7

****It seemed to happen so quickly.

They gathered on a run-down Lower East Side street in a neighborhood that had clearly chosen to ignore Mayor Giuliani's clean-up campaign, since the sidewalks were strewn with fast-food wrappers, crushed cigarette butts and the odd broken bottle of malt liquor. Michael Corey's studio was in a six story brick building that housed an occult bookstore and a kosher butcher shop on the first floor.

Four squad cars and two unmarked vehicles were gathered in front of the building. There was a huddle in the chilly air as Detective Rinaldi laid out the game plan like a football coach.

"You two know Corey, so I want you going in first," he said in a voice redolent of deepest Bensonhurst, pointing at Mulder and Scully. "Officers Lin and Young will back you up and everyone else waits out here for a signal. We got a call in to SWAT, in case he decides to take her as a hostage."

If Amy's still alive, she thought. Scully took a deep breath, trying to calm the adrenaline rush coursing through her bloodstream.

Detective Rinaldi took Mulder and Scully aside. "If the girl is alive, try to talk him down, keep him calm."

Mulder nodded. "We both have hostage negotiation training."

"Good," said the short, squat detective. "And I want you two going in wearing vests. No telling if Corey has a gun or not."

She slipped on the Kevlar with practiced fingers, all the while praying Amy and Michael were inside, and that Amy was still unharmed.

For all they knew, the two of them were eating Chinese and discussing the return of Art Deco.

She nodded to Mulder, who nodded to the uniformed officers.

"Let's do it," she said, patting her holster for reassurance.

The four of them climbed the stairs of the building, going up four flights of stairs past walls scribbled with graffiti and covered with flyers for punk shows and gallery events. They were silent as they went, each intent on the task at hand.

The hallway on the fourth floor was deadly silent, lit only with a few ineffectual light bulbs.

"It's too quiet," Mulder whispered to her as they traveled down the corridor to #402, which belonged to Michael. "I don't like this."

"Don't project," she hissed back.

Outside the door, the four of them stood and pondered their options. "Knock or break the door down?" Lin said, sotto voce.

"How about trying the knob?" said Scully.

She and Mulder drew their guns. She reached out and grasped the doorknob.

One, two, and...

To her surprise and relief, the knob twisted in her hand and the door opened. Weren't New Yorkers supposed to be fanatical about locking doors?

She jerked her head at Mulder for him to follow her and walked into a narrow hallway.

And then she heard it, a low moan in a woman's voice.

Her skin broke into goose bumps when she heard the terrified noise coming from down the hall.

The inhuman moan became words, "No, Michael, don't do this, no, no, no!"

Scully's stride accelerated into a run and she reached the end of the hallway, Mulder at her heels. An open doorway led to a large room with huge windows that let in the fading light of the day. Her eyes rapidly scanned over several large canvases daubed with paint, a mirror, and, in the corner, a futon.

Amy was there, alive.

Thank God.

Amy was lying on the futon, nude, with a tall dark-haired man straddling her. He wore only a pair of jeans, and his back glistened with sweat. A glint of something caught Scully's eye and she realized it was a straight razor and he was holding it to Amy's neck.

She raised her gun and trained it on Michael. Without looking to her side, she knew Mulder was doing the same.

"Drop the razor, Michael," Mulder said in a loud, firm voice. "FBI."

The man turned his head and his dark eyes widened at the sight of the two of them.

That was the precise moment when things began to speed up with the herky-jerky quality of an old movie from the 1920s.

She saw Amy's head shift and her mouth open, blood running in streaks from two livid slashes on her cheeks. A look of sudden hope lit her eyes. And then Amy's leg rose and she caught Michael square in the crotch with her knee, just as he was distracted by Mulder's words.

The young man roared in pain and fell back onto his knees on the futon. Amy scrambled out from under him and ran across the room, right into Mulder's arms, bursting into tears.

"Get out of here," he hissed at Amy, and pushed her toward the hallway. Her pale arms clung to him for a moment before finally letting go.

"The blade," Scully said to the man gasping in pain. It was still gripped tightly in his right hand. "You've got two guns pointed at you and a dozen law officers in and around the building. Give up the blade and it'll all be over."

Michael sat up and shook his head, as if trying to clear his head of the pain. He looked straight at her, and she noticed the sudden look of shock in his cool eyes. "Amy?" he said in confusion, staring at Scully. His eyes narrowed as he worked to puzzle out the obvious resemblance. "You look so much like Amy," he breathed.

He staggered to his feet, holding the straight razor loosely in his hand.

"Drop it now," Mulder said in a voice that was meant to sound soothing, but she could detect the tightness underneath it.

Michael smiled and ran his left hand through his short, straight hair. "I recognize you," he said, addressing Mulder. "You're one of the men who fucked Amy. You understand, don't you? She's bad. She has to die."

"No one has to die today," Scully said through clenched teeth. Her arms were beginning to ache from holding the gun on him.

"What are you going to do?" he asked, still smiling. "You can't arrest me. I'm only doing what needs to be done. Amy's a whore. Ask him." He gestured with his head toward Mulder. "He knows."

"Put the blade down, Michael," Mulder said.

Taking a step closer, Michael continued, "You should be thanking me. He can tell you how dirty she is. She tempts people. You think you're a good person, but then she tempts you, and before you know it, you're dirty, too."

"Put the blade down," Mulder said again, exaggerating each word.

He raised his hands in surrender. "I'm dirty," he said, in a dazed voice. "Amy made me that way."

He took another step closer.

Then, with a sudden motion, so quick that neither of them had time to prevent it, the blade flashed as Michael drew it swiftly across his own throat.

"Ah!" Scully gasped, jumping back involuntarily as a spurt of blood splashed across her Kevlar vest. In the same instant she heard the thump of Michael's body as he crumpled to the floor in a heap. The blade dropped from his fingers, falling with a clatter on the wood floorboards.

They ran to his body and crouched by his side. Mulder pulled out a handkerchief and picked up the razor blade, setting it carefully off to the side.

Michael twitched on the floor, his eyes open and his dark lashes fluttering. "Amy," he choked as blood bubbled from his mouth. "She's bad..."

The two NYPD officers burst in. "What the fuck?" Young said.

"He's down," Scully shouted. "Call for an ambulance."

"Already done," Lin said.

The razor had severed Michael's carotid artery, Scully could see at once. Fresh blood pumped from the open wound. Mulder tossed her the sheet he'd ripped off the futon, and she pressed it to Michael's throat in an attempt to slow the flow of blood.

"Amy," he said in a strangled voice, his eyes fluttering closed.

Normally this was the part where she desperately prayed for the victim to live, but this time she found herself heartlessly wondering if perhaps death wasn't the fate that Michael deserved.

Blood poured through the white cotton and stained her hands. She pressed harder, despite her feelings for the man.

Behind her, she could hear Amy's sobs over the rattle of Michael's labored breathing. She turned her head just long enough to see Amy, huddled in a blanket she must have gotten from the police, weeping brokenly.

Scully crouched over Michael's body for what seemed like an eternity.

Finally, the EMTs arrived and bundled him onto a stretcher. Scully stood, her knees popping from having knelt on the floor for so long.

Amy hugged the blanket tightly around her, her hair wildly tousled and tears streaking her bloody cheeks. "Will he live?" she whispered.

"I don't know," Scully said, shaking her head. She looked down at her hands, stained with the killer's blood. "It doesn't look good."

An eye for an eye, she thought for some reason.

Mulder was talking intently with one of the officers. He turned to her and gave her a strained smile to reassure her. "Amy's safe," he said. "That's more than we really expected to find."

"He slashed his own throat," she said dully.

Mulder nodded. "He was sick."

Behind him, Amy burst into a fresh torrent of weeping. She came stumbling forward and leaned against Mulder, inconsolable.

Hesitantly, Mulder closed his arms around her. He looked over Amy's head at Scully, an apology in his eyes. I can't help it, his expression seemed to say. She needs someone right now.

Scully turned away, and lifted her blood-spattered Kevlar vest off over her head with exhausted arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Amy clutched Scully's hand as the ER doctor put ten fine stitches in her arm. "I guarantee you that you'll only have a tiny scar," he said in a Indian accent.

Scully peered at the sutures. "He's doing good work, Amy."

Closing her eyes, Amy nodded.

Michael. Oh God, he'd been the one all along. Her stomach rolled with nausea, even though it was empty from vomiting at Michael's studio.

How could she have missed the signs? Had there been any?

Her brain was too muddled look back at it properly. The doctor had given her a dose of Valium before injecting her arm with Lidocaine to do his suturing. It dulled the pain somewhat, took the edge off the bite, but the raw hurt was still there. It would probably always be there, she thought as Dr. Chatterjee applied gauze to her arm.

She'd been with Michael for five years, good times and bad. After they'd spent their second or third weekend together, she'd never doubted that he was the man with whom she'd grow old. He was so loving, so gentle with her. He seemed to understand her fully.

Now she wondered about that, wincing from the internal pain, not the pain in her arm or on her face.

Was it truly her fault? Had her professional life turned him this way?

She winced again, feeling fresh tears flowing down her face. Michael was dead. He was a murderer.

Scully squeezed her hand. "Are you still feeling a lot of discomfort?" she asked.

Amy shook her head. "No, I'm thinking about Michael."

A look of sympathy crossed the face of the pretty agent. "This must be so difficult for you," Scully said. "I can't imagine what you're going through."

"I don't understand it," Amy said. "I never thought for a moment that he was the one doing those horrible things. I thought I knew him."

"Amy, the kind of killer that Michael was, it's often hard for anyone to know. They can appear to be the most normal, loving people on the outside, but there's something wrong with them on the inside."

She sniffled. "I just thought he loved me."

Scully nodded. "I'm sure he did in his way," she said. "But something inside him just snapped."

What do I do now, Amy thought. She'd never thought of herself as beholden to any man, even Michael, but she now understood how much of her vision of the future was filled with the plans they'd made together—the gallery they would open, the house in the country, the city apartment, the children they'd have after they married.

She was going to have to start all over again.

The doctor stepped back and nodded at her. "All done now, Ms. Callahan. You can go home. Just make sure you keep the area on your face clean and no foundation makeup until the scabbing heals. Go see a doctor back home in a week to see how your arm is shaping up, okay?"

Nodding, she thanked the doctor and he handed her a prescription for Tylenol 3 for the pain.

"What are you going to do tonight?" Scully asked.

"I called my friends Kate and Simon. They live on the Upper West Side and Simon is coming to pick me up. I can stay with them tonight."

"Good," she said. "I don't want you to be alone tonight, Amy."

But now she'd be alone for a long time, perhaps forever.

I got what I deserved, she thought, I'm nothing but a whore.

She hadn't realized she'd spoken those words aloud until Scully squeezed her hand even tighter than before. "Amy," she said in a firm voice. "I don't want you thinking like that. Nothing you did could possibly justify what Michael did. The blame belongs to him, not to you."

Amy shrugged.

"Listen to me, Amy," Scully went on. "I don't want you blaming yourself. Please promise me that when you go home, you'll find a therapist to talk to about this. It helps after a traumatic situation like this. Believe me, I know."

"I'll do that," she said softly, "because I don't want to feel like this for the rest of my life."

Scully got off the examining table and helped her down. "Come on," she said. "Let's go out to the waiting room until your friend comes."

"Thank you," Amy said. "You've done more for me than I have a right to expect. You saved my life."

"Just doing my job, ma'am," Scully said in a horrible impression of an old movie detective.

Amy almost, but not quite, laughed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the morning they got coffee and bagels and wandered down Fifth Avenue, looking in the windows of the exclusive shops and at the parade of Monday morning New York humanity. They really should have taken the first shuttle home, but Mulder had called Skinner and explained to him that they wouldn't be in the office until Tuesday.

After all, they hadn't had much of a weekend off.

They'd slept in until 9:00 a.m., the two of them exhausted by a draining night of dealing with giving statements to NYPD and taking Amy to the hospital. After midnight they'd checked into the midtown Hilton and fallen asleep almost before hitting the sheets.

Surprisingly, neither of them reported bad dreams upon waking.

Now Mulder felt like a tourist on vacation as he and Scully walked down the street holding hands.

They reached the majestic structure of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Scully stopped and looked at him. "Do you mind if we go in for a second?"

The cathedral was dark and smelled of the musty scent unique to old churches. Scully dropped his hand and went inside the nave. He watched as she genuflected and entered a pew. She sat down for a moment and bowed her head, and he knew she was praying.

Mulder wondered what she was praying for.

Not for the first time, he envied the way she believed.

After a few minutes Scully rose and rejoined him at the back of the pews. "Let's light a candle," she whispered.

She stuffed a few dollars in the collection box and lit two candles.

"What are you lighting them for?" he asked.

She turned to him, her blue eyes luminescent in the glow of the many candles. "One is for Amy," she said. "The other is for you and me."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

At Amy's request, Mulder stopped by her apartment on his way home from work. He hadn't seen her in almost a week, not since the bloody encounter in Michael Corey's studio. As he drove through the rain to her apartment, he wondered if something else was wrong. When she'd called and asked him to come see her, her voice had been firmer and more confident than he remembered it, but tinged with sadness too.

She answered his knock with a slightly breathless air. She was wearing a gray cashmere sweater set and a snug pair of jeans, and her feet were bare. The cuts on her face where Michael had slashed her with the razor were already beginning to heal.

"Oh," she said, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "I didn't expect you here quite so soon. You caught me a little unprepared. Come on in."

He stepped into her apartment, wondering why she'd asked him over.

She turned and started walking down the hall. "This way," she called over her shoulder. "I'm afraid I'm in the middle of packing."

He followed her down the short hallway to her bedroom. A suitcase stood open on her bed, already half full of clothes. A little pile of lingerie—bras, underwear, silk slips—lay on the bed beside it.

She moved to the bed and quickly began folding the clothes in the pile, packing them neatly in the suitcase.

"So why did you ask me here?" he asked, standing in the doorway, feeling a little awkward. He wished he'd brought Scully with him. Being alone with Amy reminded him too much of the times he'd met her at the Marriott. Without the business of sex to conduct, he wasn't sure quite how to talk to her.

"I wanted to thank you for your help."

He felt a small flash of annoyance. "You could have done that over the phone."

She looked up from her packing, and smiled slowly. "That would hardly have been adequate thanks, now would it?"

He watched as she deftly folded a black slip, the smooth silk shimmering in her hands, and laid it in the suitcase.

"No," she said softly. "When I think of how close I came to dying...and about Vanessa, and Lisa..." She shook her head. "I just can't believe all that really happened to me, little Amy Callahan from Evanston, Illinois."

There was no mistaking the look of pain on her face. "So what now?" he asked her.

"I'm moving to San Francisco. There are just too many ugly and sad memories here. There's a flourishing art community out in San Francisco, and I can get a new start."

"Are you planning on..." he groped for a tactful phrase, "on working out there?"

She stopped packing and gave him a forthright look. "Yes."

His forehead creased in frown. "But you could be so much more, Amy."

"I know that." A faint smile curved her lips. "But at heart, I'll always be a professional."

He felt a sense of disappointment at the words, and wondered why her choice should bother him. Before, in those days when he'd paid for his sessions with her, he had never really stopped to think about her life outside the hotel room. He gave her money; she gave him sex. They both got what they wanted. It had seemed to be a convenient and satisfactory arrangement on both sides.

It didn't really seem that way to him anymore. He'd seen too much of her life now to be able to separate Amy the professional from Amy the intelligent, vulnerable woman.

"Is everything going to be okay between you and Agent Scully?" Amy asked.

He looked away. "I think so," he said. "I hope so."

"I like her," Amy said, placing the last piece of loose clothing in the suitcase. "You make a good team."

He nodded but did not comment. He didn't like talking about Scully with Amy. It seemed disloyal, somehow, talking about Scully with the woman he'd once pretended was her.

Amy walked over to him. She laid a hand on his arm, and picked a speck of lint off his jacket. "You know, I owe you a great deal," she said, looking up at him through her lashes.

He shrugged. "You needed help."

She smiled enigmatically. He could smell her perfume—Paris, the perfume he'd given her. Scully's perfume.

"I know, but I like to pay my debts." Her voice had shifted to a sexier, more inviting register. "What would you like, Mulder? Anything you want ; it's on the house."

"Amy, don't," he said, with a slight shake of his head.

"No? You must know that's why I asked you here. I want to thank you properly."

"I didn't know."

She smiled and looked up into his face. "It's okay, I wouldn't tell Scully. Whatever you want. Just name it."

He shook his head. He was not even tempted. "No," he said. "No, Amy, that's not what we were about. I wouldn't do that to Scully."

She gave him a questioning look. "You did it plenty of times before."

"I wasn't with her then," he said. "And I was wrong."

She shrugged, and turned around. "Whatever you say." She went back to the suitcase and resumed her packing.

It bothered him that she thought she owed him something. He'd helped her because she needed him, because she'd been in danger. Why should she think he expected payment? She didn't have to offer him sex to settle the score.

To compound matters, he sensed he'd offended her by turning her down, maybe even hurt her feelings. She was transferring clothes into her suitcase with a rigid back, not looking at him even though he was standing in some confusion not six feet from her.

Poor Amy, he thought. She'd let so many men buy her that even she had begun to believe her worth depended on what she could give them.

He cleared his throat. "Thanks for the offer, Amy," he said. "If things were different..."

She nodded. "They wouldn't be the same."

What a strange association, Mulder thought. It was completely backwards; they'd started out with sex, then she'd come to depend on him, and now they had a slightly distant, awkward acquaintance. Soon she would be the width of a continent away, and he wouldn't even know her any more. It was like traveling through a normal relationship in reverse.

"Good luck in San Francisco," he said.

She smiled. "Thanks, Mulder. Good luck to you, too." She took a wooden jewelry box from a top drawer, and slipped it into her suitcase. Then she turned to him with something in her hand. "Here," she said. "I want to give this back."

He looked down at the cool little puddle of gold she'd pressed into his palm. It was the cross necklace he'd given her, the one he'd once asked her to wear when they were together.

"Now there are no loose ends," she said.

He looked up at her, and smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mulder ran, his mind a blank except for the rhythmic slap of his running shoes on the wet pavement. The muscles in his legs were starting to burn, and so were his lungs. He sped up.

He was heading east along Prince Street. It was raining lightly, and now and then he caught a watery glimpse of his reflection in the puddles which lined the road. When he reached the intersection with Fairfax, the traffic light had just turned red. He checked over his shoulder for oncoming traffic, and crossed the street without slowing.

It was his favorite part of running, clearing his head of all other thoughts as he hit his stride. He liked to feel the ache of lactic acid in his muscles, the harshness of the cool air in his lungs, the jarring impact of bone against pavement. It took his mind off things—his problems, his shortcomings, his doubts.

Finally he reached his goal. The Potomac. It stretched before him, its waters glittering gray in the wet early spring evening. He drew up short, breathing hard, his hands on his quadriceps. When he'd caught his breath a little, he straightened, and dug in the pocket of his sweatpants for the necklace Amy had given him.

He held it up, letting the cross on its thin gold chain dangle from his fingers. In the cloudy outdoors, it was a dull thing, the metal pale and cold.

"I won't be needing you again," he said.

He balled the necklace up in his fist. With a wind-up perfected in his childhood baseball days, he sent it arcing through the overcast sky, sailing out over the river. It fell into the water, so far out he couldn't even hear the splash.

Then he turned and began running for home again, feeling freer than he'd felt in a long time.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The rain had stopped and the sky cleared by the time she parked down the block from Mulder's apartment. Scully got the grocery bags out of the backseat and stopped for a moment to breathe in the fresh scent of rain. It smelled warmer, somehow, as if spring had finally arrived after dragging its heels.

When she reached his building, she saw Mulder, dressed in sweats, unlocking the front door. He'd clearly been for a run-his hair was damp and sticking up in places, and his face was flushed from his exertions.

"Hey," she said and he turned around to flash her a surprised and delighted smile.

"What are you doing here?"

She juggled the bags in her arms. "I'm a woman of many surprises."

Mulder held the door open for her and they walked inside the lobby and towards the elevator. "So, what do you have in the bags?" He punched the up button.

"I thought I'd make dinner for the two of us. I still owe you after all the meals you made for me during my recovery in January."

The elevator door slid open and Mulder grabbed the bags, Scully following behind. He hit the button for the fourth floor and the elevator began to rise with a creak.

He set down the bags and patted his belly. "What are you making?"

"I can't cook many things, but I can make a great pan of lasagna. And I got a couple of bottles of Chianti to go with it."

Mulder's eyebrows rose. "Oh, I don't know what I did to deserve all that, but I'll gladly do it again." He reached over and punched the emergency stop button and the elevator shuddered to a halt.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

He grinned and moved a step closer to her, so their bodies were nearly touching, and she could smell the unique scent of his sweat.

Many mammals can instinctively recognize the scent of their mates, she thought.

Mulder's hand strayed in her hair. "It's an emergency," he whispered.

"What is?" she asked, playing dumb for once.

His response was to lean over and kiss her, his lips, warm from exercise, a pleasant contrast to her chilled flesh. She shut her eyes to block out the dinginess of the elevator and let herself be lost in the sensation of kissing Mulder-the sweet-salt of his mouth and tongue, the touch of his hand on the back of her neck, the pounding of her heart under layers of wool and cotton.

He pulled away and she stared at him, still breathing hard. "Do I get a kiss like that every time I decide to make dinner?"

"Yep." Mulder grinned and nodded.

"Well, I'm warning you, I only know how to make three things—lasagna, stir-fry and grilled tuna."

He applied a gentle kiss to her neck. "I'll buy you a cookbook, Scully."

"How about if _you_ cook?"

His answer was to push her against the elevator wall and give her another crushing kiss.

"Oh," she sighed when they finally separated. "I think we need to eat out less."

Mulder switched off the emergency stop and the elevator again began rumbling upward.

Once inside his apartment, Scully dragged the bags off to the kitchen while Mulder unlaced his wet running shoes. The ice cream went into the freezer and she began looking for the frying pan.

With her head in the cupboard, she felt him come up behind her and gasped as his cool fingers slid under her sweater to cup her breast.

"I was thinking," he panted in her ear, "that we could put off dinner for a while."

It was a tempting thought, especially with the way he was gently squeezing her breasts and pressing his erection into her back. But she was a sensible woman at heart. First things first; they had all night to make love.

Scully extricated herself from his grasp and turned around. "If I don't get the lasagna started we won't eat for hours. And I'm hungry."

"So am I," he whined.

Pushing him away with a playful hand, she said, "Go take a shower so you'll be nice and clean for me."

He made a chagrined face and looked down at the hard-on tenting his sweatpants. "I suppose it'll keep," he muttered.

"Good," she said and turned back toward the counter. Sometimes it was in a woman's best interest to make her man suffer, she thought, remembering the giggly high school night when Melissa had told her that after returning home from a date.

It was fast work making the lasagna. The sauce had been in her freezer, made by her mother with the last of her garden tomatoes the summer before. She quickly browned some crumbled spicy Italian sausage and added it to the sauce. Then she set to work assembling layers of uncooked noodles, ricotta cheese mixed with egg and basil, sauce and pre-shredded mozzarella cheese.

Scully was just assembling the last of four layers in the pan when she heard the padding of bare feet across the carpeting of the living room and then on the kitchen linoleum. Mulder was still damp and glistening from his shower, wearing only his boxer shorts. She smiled to see him with his hair wet and slick as a seal's.

Mulder sniffed the air. "Mmm, it smells good in here. It's nice to have the little woman where she belongs, in the kitchen and cooking for me."

She snorted derisively and turned back to finish sprinkling the last of the mozzarella on top of the lasagna.

The cheese fell out of her hand in one unsightly clump as she felt his warm breath on the back of her neck and his hand snake around to unbutton the fly of her wool trousers. "I'm still trying to cook here," she warned, but she knew that nothing would deter him at this point.

"It looks delicious," he murmured, and undid the zipper on her pants. "But if we're having an Italian meal, don't I get some antipasti?" Her pants slid to the floor in an untidy heap and she briefly worried about wrinkles until she felt his fingers fan out over her behind.

"Ooh, black lace, Scully," he breathed. "You know how I feel about you wearing black lace."

Scully turned and smiled at the expression on his face, oddly reminiscent of a wolf licking his chops over a fresh kill.

"Sorry to interrupt your cooking," he said and let his fingers move over to the front of her panties.

"It's okay," she said. "I'm done now."

One dark eyebrow cocked. "Good, cause I'm ready to eat."

Her eyes widened and she felt the telltale signs of growing arousal—her breasts felt heavier and the thin sweater she wore suddenly felt far too warm for her taste. "Do you have some kind of thing about this kitchen, Mulder?" she teased, remembering the morning not so long ago when they'd enjoyed the dubious comforts of his kitchen table.

Mulder's answer was to tug off her sweater and send it flying in the direction of the refrigerator. She stifled a laugh at the sight of his eyes nearly popping out of his head as he took in her new black lace bra, which was cut nearly down to the tops of her nipples.

"I'll admit it," he said, pausing to kiss each of the twin globes pushed up and out by underwire. "I have a thing for this kitchen and I especially have a thing for you in black lingerie. Go ahead, call me a pervert."

"At least you don't have a foot fetish." She gasped as he pulled down the lace of one of the bra's cups and drew her nipple in his mouth, running his tongue along the stiffening flesh in circles.

He raised his head. "Nah, if I have a fetish of any kind, it's for your breasts." The other cup was tugged down and he repeated his ardent attentions with lips and tongue on the second nipple.

Scully leaned against the counter, her hands grasping his neck for support, and hoped she wouldn't knock over the lasagna pan as he took his sweet time sucking her breasts. Her entire center felt heavy and swollen with need and she pushed his head to signal him to go lower.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" he said, laughing.

She nodded.

"Good." He kissed her, plunging his tongue in her mouth with hungry authority. "But first I have to tell you a secret."

"Don't you think we've shared enough secrets lately?" she groaned in dismay and frustration.

"This is a good one," he whispered.

She nodded and reached to stroke his hard cock through the thin cotton of his shorts.

"I—I can't think when you do that, Scully," he stammered.

"Good, you think too much," she said and freed his cock from the confines of his boxers, enjoying his groan as she did so.

"Oh, that's good," he muttered as she wrapped her fingers around him and began to stroke up and down the length of his hard shaft.

"You were saying something about a secret?"

"Yeah," he said, his fingers sliding between her legs and into her panties to twine in her pubic hair. "We've talked before about how we fantasized about each other before we were together like this."

"Mmm-hmmm," she said, unable to say anything further as his fingers moved between her wet folds.

"My biggest fantasy about you was always about going down on you."

For some reason, a flush began to spread across her face. "It was?" she said, as he slid a long finger to the hilt inside her.

"Yeah. I pictured you spreading your legs for me and tasting you for the first time. I can't tell you how many nights I touched myself and thought of you, Scully, straddling my face and letting me lick you until you came again and again."

Scully cried out as one finger became three and the index finger of his other hand circled her clit. "Oh my God..."

"So many times I just wanted to hike up one of your little skirts, pull down your panties and eat you right there in our office."

A dark thought crossed her mind and threatened to short-circuit the orgasm she felt sparking to life. Her voice came out in a raspy whisper. "Did you think of me when you did that to Amy?"

Mulder violently shook his head. "I never went down on Amy, Scully. Never. For that there was no substitute."

She let out all her breath and he sank to his knees on the floor. "Only you, Scully."

His tongue ventured out and licked her where the line of her pubic hair met her belly. "My tattooed lady," he said with a smile, brushing the fingers of his left hand on the phoenix character on her hip. With swift fingers, he pulled off her panties.

Scully felt her knees turn watery with her desire and she grasped the edge of the counter harder. She lifted one leg over his shoulder to give him better access.

"God, you're wet," he said admiringly, beginning to deeply thrust his fingers into her again. "It makes me feel so good to know I can turn you on like this. I always wondered, all those years..."

And then his mouth began its skilled journey of her most private areas, his tongue traveling up and down her folds, making detours to circumnavigate her clitoris.

"You do," she hissed, pushing herself into his face. "From the beginning you've been able to make me feel this way."

Even in her most private moments of Mulder fantasy in the past, alone with her vibrator, she'd never been able to picture him with his dark head between her legs, tasting her with such abandon.

One strong hand grasped the curve of her ass and he began to suckle at her clitoris.

Never, never had she imagined this.

With one last push of his fingers into her, she tipped back her head and moaned, the sound echoing around the kitchen as she shuddered with the overwhelming force of her orgasm. She nearly collapsed onto the lasagna, but managed to right herself at the last second.

Mulder looked up at her, his full lower lip still glistening with her juices. "Sometimes fantasies are disappointing in real life, but in your case, my fantasies pale next to the real thing." He stood and kissed her and she tasted herself on him, remembering how odd, yet exciting, it had been the first time he'd gone down on her and kissed her.

She leaned against his strong body. "Wonderful," she crooned, her eyes still shut.

His fingers run through her hair. "When we're together, it's always wonderful."

"Mulder," she whispered. "I'm glad we're together."

She pulled him closer and felt the strong beating of his heart against her cheek.

"Hey Scully?" he asked in a quiet voice.

"Yeah?"

"How about we get the lasagna in the oven."

"Are you still hungry?" she said, enjoying the feeling of his chest hair next to her skin.

"I just thought it would be a good idea to get it cooking before we go off to the bedroom and I take my time making love to you."

The breath caught in her throat. Sometimes it still seemed unbelievable that they were together.

Scully looked up and smiled to see the joy on his face. "It's a good idea, indeed," she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In his bedroom, he stripped off his boxers and high jumped onto the bed in a Fosbury Flop that would have made any track coach proud.

Scully moved a bit more deliberately, walking with heavy-lidded eyes toward the bed. She took off the black lace bra that was the last of her remaining clothes before joining him there.

She pressed her nude body along the length of his, smiling. "What do you want?" she said in a low, sultry voice, echoing his words from the Sunday before, when they'd christened the kitchen table. "Whatever you want tonight, I'll do it for you."

He grinned. "Whatever I want?"

"Within reason, of course," she amended, and wrested a laugh from him. Even when she was trying to be abandoned, Scully would always be Scully.

She trailed her hand up his bare thigh, and his eyes fluttered closed as an ecstatic shiver ran over him.

"Do you know what I'd really like?" he said.

"I'm almost afraid to ask."

"I want this," he said, and pulled her eye-to-eye with him. The eagerness he had been feeling in the kitchen was giving way to a different feeling, a yearning to be close to her.  
He lowered his voice and whispered, "I really want to be inside you, and watch your face, and make you come again."

She swallowed. "I think maybe we could do that..."

Her drew her lips down to his. They kissed, their tongues twining. He caressed her face. He was aware of how warm she was, how soft, how sweet she tasted.

He rolled her under him, so that he was atop her. "I love you," he said quietly, at the same moment as he entered her.

She sighed and he began to move gently, with long, deep, slow strokes. He could feel her breasts, her nipples hard, pressed against his chest. He could feel her hair, as fine and smooth as silk, spilling over his hands.

He stared down into her face as they made love. It was actually making him ache, how good it felt. She was so soft and slick, and it felt so good to be buried inside her, to be this close to Scully, to actually be joined with her this way.

She smiled tenderly at him. He did not smile. For some reason it seemed completely serious to him this time—something that, for God knew what reason, was actually  
bringing a lump to his throat.

"Relax, Mulder," she whispered, apparently mistaking the look of awe on his face for worry, or guilt, or one of the many other emotions she was probably all too used to seeing. She stroked his back.

He swept his hand down between the two of them, finding her clit, touching her, catching her moan in his mouth. He wanted to hold back, he wanted it to last, he wanted the sort of leisurely passion that would not burn itself out too soon. A line from a poem kept repeating in his head: "Pray love me little, so you love me long." He wanted this moment to go on forever.

But he couldn't make it go on forever, however much he wished it. Soon they were both trembling. Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, and she made a soft, breathless sound with every stroke.

When she came, he came too. She moaned and shuddered against him; he held still, sighing against her face as he gushed deep inside her.

Afterward, he kissed her, lifted himself off her, pulled her onto her side against him. They lay spooned together, quiet and relaxed, as their heartbeats slowed.

"I'm going to fall asleep," he mumbled.

"That's okay."

"The lasagna is going to burn."

She started to laugh. "I forgot all about the lasagna."

Her head was on his arm; his other arm was draped across her. He liked the warmth of her body tucked securely against his. "Wake me up when the apartment catches fire."

She chuckled. "When it does we're going to look funny, running out in the hallway naked."

"I'm going to look funny," he said sleepily. "You're just going to look unbelievably beautiful."

She snuggled back against him. "Your neighbors are probably past being surprised by anything you do anyway."

She was joking, but for some reason it seemed much more than a joke to him. It seemed—it seemed to mean she accepted him, just as he was. She had never made the sort of mistakes he made, and yet she understood him. He felt his eyes grow hot with unshed tears, and thought, at the same time as he fervently hoped he wasn't actually going to start to cry, that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him. The best thing that would ever happen to him, more than likely.

He kissed her hair. "Are we okay?" he whispered quietly.

"Yeah," she said. "Yeah, we're okay."

END

_"It is not the perfect, but the imperfect, who have need of love. It is when we are wounded by our own hands, or by the hands of others, that love should come to cure us—else what use is love at all?"_

_Oscar Wilde_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing can be a lonely business. You walk around in the real world, going to meetings and spending time with friends and family, while in your brain, characters are talking and plots are spinning. Even if you have writing friends, being immersed in the world of your story can feel rather isolating, since you have no one with whom to truly share the development of your story.
> 
> This is why collaboration with another author can be so rewarding. You have someone who understands the minute details of the plot, who can tell you if your latest idea is awful or not, and the instant gratification of being able to send off the latest chapter and get their feedback on it. It can be frustrating at times—outlines can spin wildly out of control and there can be disagreements on plot and character development, but in general, there is nothing so wonderful as a collaborative co-write.
> 
> Writing The Professional has been a wonderful experience for us. Sure, it's taken up nearly all of our already limited free time, but we had an enjoyable time telling this tale.
> 
> Forgive us for inaccuracies in law enforcement procedure and the world of prostitution. Neither of us is a cop, pathologist or call girl, and while we did research, there are limits .
> 
> It wasn't just the two of us working on this story, though. We were helped by a veritable fleet of wonderful reader/editors who spent their time offering their suggestions and insight, and thanks to them, it turned out to be a far different and better story than we'd started with. Becky kept us, and especially our Scully, honest. Betsey was kind enough to read for us while in the north woods, and had a multitude of helpful suggestions. Blueswirl  
> came to the rescue with some insight on the early chapters. Gwen was our doyenne of fine grammer and style advice. Lisa helped us, in a most crucial way, to raise the angst meter. Shari served as a generous cheerleader and advocate for story spooning. We don't know how to properly thank these fine women except to say that this story would not have been written without their assistance. They were gracious about holding the hands of two people intimidated by writing their first semi-casefile.
> 
> Thanks to our families and friends who tried to understand as we spent a month writing like crazy. And this story most definitely would not be here without the moral support and good humor of our darling friends in the root cellar.


End file.
